LIBRARY  ESSAYS 

PAPERS   RELATED  TO  THE  WORK 
OF  PUBLIC  LIBRARIES 


LIBRARY  ESSAYS 

PAPERS  RELATED  TO  THE  WORK 
OF  PUBLIC  LIBRARIES 


ARTHUR  E.  BOSTWICK,  Ph.  D. 


•     • 


THE  H.  W.  WILSON  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK 

1920 


i 


1 


PREFACE 

The  author  of  these  papers  began  his  service  in 
librarianship  in  April,  1895.  He  celebrates  his  silver 
jubilee  by  gathering  them  into  a  single  volume.  Be- 
fore becoming  a  librarian  he  had  worked  for  many 
years  as  teacher,  editor  and  journalist,  and  the  use  of 
the  pen  having  become  second  nature,  he  took  it  up 
in  behalf  of  libraries  and  librarians,  somewhat 
sooner,  perhaps,  than  experience  would  warrant. 
However,  the  papers  reflect  to  a  certain  extenl  the 
progress  of  library  work  during  the  past  quarter 
century.  A.  E.  B. 


415918 


CONTENTS 

Pains  and  Penalties  in  Library  Work  -      -    -      3 
Read    at    the    Magnolia    Conference    of    the 
American   Library   Association,   June,    L902. 
\  A.  L.  A.  Proceedings,  L902,  p.  29-34  | 

How  Librarians  Choose  Books 17 

(Public  Libraries,  April,  1!M>:,»,  p.  1.I7  11  i 

The  Work  of  the  Small  Public  Library  -      -    -  29 
(Library  Journal,  August,  1903,  p.  596-600) 

Lay  Control  in  Libraries  and  Elsewhere  -         39 
Read    before    the    Trustees'    Section    of    tin- 
American  Library  Association,  at  the  Niag- 
ara Conference.     (A.  L.  A.  Proceedings,  L903, 
p.  199-202) 

The  Whole  Duty  of  a  Library  Trustee:  prom 

a  Librarian's  Standpoint 4!) 

An   address  before   the  Trustees'    Section    of 
the  American  Library  Association.     (.1.  /..    I 
Proceedings,  1906,  p.  40-4) 

The  Day's  Work:  Some  Conditions  and  Some 

Ideals ->!> 

Presidential  address  before  the  New  York  Li- 
brary Association,  Lake  Placid,  September 
21,  1903.  (Library  Journal,  October,  1903, 
p.  704-7) 

Library  Statistics 69 

(Library  Journal,  January,  1904,  p.  5-8) 


viii  CONTENTS 

Old     Probabilities     in     the     Library — His 

Modest  Vaticinations 79 

Read  before  the  Pennsylvania  Library  Club, 
Philadelphia,  May  9,  1904.  {Library  Jour- 
nal, October,  1904,  p.  517-23) 

The  Love  of  Books  as  a  Basis  for  Librarian- 
ship  97 

Read  before  the  New  York  Library  Associa- 
tion, Twilight  Park,  September,  1906.  {Li- 
brary Journal,  February,  1907,  p.  51-5) 

The  Library  as  the  Educational  Center  of  a 

Town '  HI 

{Public  Libraries,  May,  1907,  p.  171-4) 

The  Librarian  as  a  Censor 121 

Presidential  address  before  the  American  Li- 
brary Association,  Lake  Minnetonka  Confer- 
ence, June,  1908.  {Library  Journal,  July, 
1908,  p.  257-64) 

How  to  Raise  the  Standard  of  Book  Selection  141 
Read  at  the  meeting  of  the  Library  commis- 
sions of  the  New  England  States,  Hartford, 
Conn.,  February  11,  1909.     {Public  Librar- 
ies, May,  1909,  p.  163-7) 

Library  Circulation  at  Long  Range  -      -      -      221 
{Library  Journal,  July,  1913,  p.  391-4) 

Conflicts   of    Jurisdiction   in    Library    Sys- 
tems   231 

Read  before  the  round  table  of  branch  librar- 
ians at  the  Washington  conference,  May  28, 
*      1914.        {Library     Journal,    August,     1914, 
p.  588-91) 


CONTENTS  ix 

Three  Kinds  of  Librarians 241 

Read  before  the  Missouri  Library  Associa- 
tion, Sedalia,  November  18,  1914  .  (Public 
Libraries,  January,  1915,  p.  1-4;  February, 
1915,  p.  47-50) 

School  Libraries  and  Mental  Training  -      -    255 
(School  Review,  June,  1915,  p.  395-405) 

The  Library  and  the  Business  Man  -      -      -      !_'<;<+ 
A  luncheon  address  to  the  Advertising  Clul> 
of  St.  Louis.     (Library  Journal,  April,  1917, 
p.  259-64) 

System  in  the  Library 153 

Read  before  the  Missouri  State  Library  Asso- 
ciation, Columbia,  Mo.,  October  28,  1909. 
(Library  Journal,  November,   1909,   p.   476- 

82) 

The  Exploitation  of  the  Public  Library  -      -    171 
Address  before  the  American  Library  Asso- 
ciation at  the  Pasadena  Conference,  May  19, 
1911.     (A.  L.  A.  Proceedings,  1911,  p.  60-5) 

Service  Systems  in  Libraries 183 

(Library  Journal,  June,  1912,  p.  299-304) 

Efficiency  Records  in  Libraries l!>!» 

(Library  Journal,  March,  1913,  p.  131-3) 

Mal-Employment  in  the  Library  -  205 

Read  before  the  Iowa  Library  Association. 
(Iowa  Library  Quarterly,  October,  1912, 
p.  247-52) 

Cost  of  Administration -1" 

Report  to  the  American  Library  Institute. 
(Public  Libraries,  December,  1912,  j».  416-18) 


s 


CONTENTS 


Poets,  Libraries  and  Realities 283 

An  address  at  the  opening  of  the  new  build- 
ing of  the  Indianapolis  Public  Library.  (Li- 
brary Journal,  December,  1917,  p.  944-50) 

The  Church  and  the  Public  Library  -     -     -     299 
(Homiletic  Review,  June,  1918,  p.  435-9) 

The  Future  of  Library  Work 309 

(A.  L.  A.  Bulletin,  September,  1919,  p.  50-7) 

Popularizing  Music  Through  the  Library  -    -  325 
Read  before    the    National    Association    of 
Music  Teachers  and  reprinted  from  the  pub- 
lished Proceedings  for  1918. 

Two  Cardinal  Sins 341 

A  Message  to  Beginners  -     - 357 

Luck  in  the  Library 373 

The  Library  as  a  Museum 393 

The  Library  and  the  Locality 409 

Index 429 


LIBRARY  ESSAYS 

PAPERS   RELATED  TO  THE  WORK 
OF  PUBLIC  LIBRARIES 


PAINS  AND  PENALTIES  IN  LIBRARY  WORK* 

In  somewhat  the  sanm  way  as  Irving  makes  Died- 
rich  Knickerbocker  begin  his  history  of  New  York 
with  the  creation  of  the  world,  so  we  may  open  a  dis- 
cussion of  this  subject  with  a  word  on  the  theory  of 
punishment.  We  all  know  that  neither  moral  phil- 
osophers nor  penologists  are  agreed  in  this  matter. 
Do  we  inflict  punishment  to  satisfy  our  eternal  sense 
of  justice,  to  prevent  further  wrong-doing  on  the  part 
of  the  person  punished,  as  an  example  to  others,  or 
to  reform  the  delinquent?  So  far  as  the  justicial  the- 
ory goes,  it  is  unnecessary  here  to  discuss  whether 
it  is  founded  merely  on  the  old  savage  feeling  of  re- 
venge, which  having  done  its  part  in  ensuring  pun- 
ishment to  the  wrong-doer  in  the  uncivilized  past, 
should  now  be  put  aside.  As  a  matter  of  fact  the 
rule,  "Let  no  guilty  man  escape,"  is  a  very  good  one 
for  practical  purposes,  whatever  its  theoretical  im- 
plications. WThy  should  it  be  necessary  to  proceed 
according  to  any  one  theory  in  administering  pun- 
ishment? Practically  in  the  home,  at  school,  and  in 
the  courtroom  the  simple  administration  of  justice 
does  very  well  for  us,  and  when  we  go  a  little  farther 
into  the  matter  we  see  that  each  of  the  other  elements 
enters  into  consideration.  Certainly  it  is  so  in  the 
library. 

Penalties  for  the  infraction  of  our  rules  should  be 
so  inflicted  that  future  wrong-doing  both  on  the  part 
of  the  culprit  and  on  that  of  the  remainder  of  the 

•Read  at  the  Magnolia  Conference  of  the  American  library 
Association,   June,    1902. 


4  LIBRARY  ESSAYS 

public  becomes  less  likely  than  before.  Whether  we 
always  do  this  in  the  most  satisfactory  way  may  be 
queried. 

Punishable  acts  committed  in  a  library  may  be 
divided,  according  to  the  old  ecclesiastical  classifica- 
tion, into  mala  prohibita  and  mala  in  se;  in  other 
words,  into  acts  that  are  simply  contrary  to  library 
regulations  and  those  that  are  absolutely  wrong.  To 
steal  a  book  is  wrong  anywhere  and  does  not  become 
so  merely  because  the  act  is  committed  in  a  library; 
but  the  retention  of  a  borrowed  book  for  fifteen  in- 
stead of  fourteen  days  is  not  absolutely  wrong,  but 
simply  contrary  to  library  regulations. 

The  keeping  of  books  overtime  is  a  purely  library 
offence,  committed  against  the  library  and  to  be  pun- 
ished by  the  library;  and  with  it  may  be  classed 
such  infractions  of  the  rules  as  failure  to  charge  or 
discharge  a  book,  loud  talking  or  misbehavior  below 
the  rank  of  really  disorderly  conduct,  such  injury 
to  books  as  does  not  constitute  wilful  mutilation, 
the  giving  of  a  fictitious  name  at  the  application 
desk,  etc. 

For  all  these  strictly  library  offences  the  favorite 
penalties  seem  to  be  two  in  number — the  exaction  of 
a  fine  and  exclusion  from  library  privileges — tempo- 
rary or  permanent.  The  former  is  more  used  than  the 
latter,  and  I  venture  to  think  unjustly  so.  From  the 
sole  standpoint  of  punishment  the  great  advantage 
of  a  fine  is  that  it  touches  people  in  their  most  sensi- 
tive point — the  pocket.  But  this  is  a  ganglion  whose 
sensitiveness  is  in  inverse  proportion  to  its  size;  in 
one  case  the  exaction  of  a  cent  means  the  confiscation 
of  the  possessor's  entire  fortune;  in  another  the  de- 
linquent could  part  with  a  hundred  dollars  without 
depriving  himself  of  a  necessity  or  a  pleasure.  Of 
course  this  lack  of  adaptability  to  the  conditions  of 


PAINS  AND   PENALTIES 

the  person  to  be  punished  is  not  confined  to  this  one 
method.     Imprisonment,  for  instance,  may  be  the  rum 
of  a  life  to  the  hitherto  respectable  person,  while  to 
the  tramp  it  may  simply  menu  a  month's  shelter  and 
food      But  in  the  case  of  a  money  penalty  the  lack  of 
adaptability    is   particularly   noticeable,    and    hence 
wherever  it  is  exacted  a  Large  portion  of  the  public 
comes  to  forget  that  it  is  a  penalty  at  all.     Instead  of 
a  punishment   exacted  in  return   for  the  commission 
of  a  misdemeanor  and  intended  to  discourage  the  rep- 
etition  thereof,  it  is   looked    upon    as    payment     for 
the  privilege  of  committing  the  misdemeanor,  and  it 
in  fact  becomes    this  very    thing.      Thus,    in    states 
where  there  is    a    prohibitory    law,    and    periodical 
raids  are  made  on  saloons  with  the  resulting  fines, 
these  fines  often  become  in  effect  license  fees,  and  are 
so  regarded    by    both    delinquents    and    authorities. 
Where  a    municipality    provides    that    automobiles 
shall  not  be  speeded  in  its  streets  under  penalty  of 
a  heavy  fine,  the  wealthy  owners  of  motor-carnages 
too  often  regard  this  as  permission  to  speed  on  pay- 
ment of  a  stated  amount,  and  act  accordingly.     So  m 
the  library,  the  fine  for  keeping  books  overtime  is 
widelv  regarded  as  a  charge  for  the  privilege  of  keep- 
ing the  books  longer  than  the  formal  rules  allow,    be- 
ing so  regarded,  the  fine  loses  a  great  part  of  its  pun- 
itive effect,  and  largely  becomes  in  fact  what  it  is 
popularly  thought  to  be.    Thus  we  have  a  free  public 
library  granting  extra  privileges  to  those  who  can 
afford  to  pay  for  them  and    withholding    the    same 
from  those  who  cannot  afford  to  pay-an  extremely 
obiectional  state  of  things. 

In  making  this  characterization  I  am  aware  that 
the  sale  of  additional  facilities  and  privileges  by  a 
free  library  is  regarded  as  proper  by  a  large  number 
of  librarians,  and  that  the  extension  of  systems  of 


6  LIBRARY  ESSAYS 

which  it  is  a  feature  is  widely  urged.  It  is  found  in 
the  St.  Louis  plan  for  fiction,  which  has  been  so  suc- 
cessful, and  still  more  in  Mr.  Dewey's  proposed  li- 
brary bookstore.  That  all  these  plans  are  admirable 
in  many  ways  may  be  freely  acknowledged.  In  so  far 
as  they  may  be  adopted  by  endowed  libraries  they 
are  certainly  unobjectionable.  But  in  spite  of  their 
advantages,  it  seems  to  me  that  their  use  in  an  insti- 
tution supported  from  the  public  funds  is  a  mistake. 
The  direct  payment  of  money  to  any  institution  so 
supported,  even  if  such  payment  is  logically  justifi- 
able, is  open  to  so  much  misconstruction  and  is  so 
commonly  misunderstood  or  misinterpreted,  that  I 
would  hold  up  as  an  ideal  the  total  abolition  of  all 
money  transactions  between  the  individual  members 
of  a  public  and  institutions  supported  by  that  public 
as  a  whole. 

The  present  subject  evidently  does  not  justify 
further  discussion  of  this  point,  but  its  mention  here 
is  proper  because  if  library  fines  have  become  in 
many  cases  payments  for  a  privilege,  that  very  fact 
should  lead  those  who  agree  with  what  has  been  said 
above  to  strive  for  their  abolition. 

Another  objection  to  the  fine,  which  is,  curiously 
enough,  also  the  chief  reason  why  it  is  almost  hope- 
less to  look  for  its  abolition,  is  the  fact  that  wherever 
fines  have  been  applied  they  have  become  a  source 
of  revenue  that  cannot  well  be  neglected.  In  a  village 
not  far  from  New  York  the  receipts  from  bicycle  fines 
at  one  time  nearly  paid  the  running  expenses  of  the 
place.  Agitation  in  favor  of  substituting  other  meth- 
ods of  punishing  the  cyclists  who  ride  on  the  side- 
walks and  fail  to  light  their  lamps  at  sundown  would 
evidently  be  hopeless  here.  In  the  same  way  receipts 
from  fines  have  become  a  very  considerable  source  of 
income  in  large  libraries,  and  are  not  to  be  neglected 


PAINS  AND  PENALTIES  7 

even  in  small  ones.    This  is  apparent  in  the  following 
table* : 

Income  Fines 

Boston    $309,417.52  $4,62X45 

Chicago    285,951.22  7.I3I.I9 

Philadelphia   141,95445  2,385.52 

Brooklyn   105,081.19  4,013.26 

N    Y    C    F    L        91,613.12  4,646.98 

Buffalo 87,946.85  2,951.21 

Milwaukee    7i.J28.8o  .,295.99 

San  Francisco  6^3i  ?^!5 

Newark    43,7o6.36  1,905.17 

Evidently  the  abolition  of  fines  in  these  cases 
would  mean  a  reduction  of  income  that  would  make 
itself  felt  at  once. 

Now,  of  course,  the  knowledge  that  the  detection 
of  wrongdoing  is  financially  profitable  to  the  detec- 
tor results  in  increased  vigilance.     So  far,  that  is  a 
good  thing.  But  it  goes  farther  than  this:  it  makes 
the  authorities  strict  regarding  technicalities;  it  may 
even  lead  to  the  encouragement  of  infraction  of  the 
law  in  order  that  the  penalties  may  reach  a  larger 
amount.    In  the  town  that  is  supported  by  bicycle  fines 
we  may   fairly  conclude  that  no  resident  calls  the 
attention  of  the  unwary  cyclist  to  the  warning  sign, 
past  which  he  wheels  toward  the  sidewalk.    To  do  so 
would  decrease  the  village  revenue  and  raise  taxes. 
So  too,  what  librarian  would    wish    to    adopt    any 
course  that  will  certainly  reduce  the  money  at  his 
disposal  for  salaries  and  books? 

Supposing,  however,  that  this  loss  can  be  made  up 
in  some  way,  is  there  anything  that  can  be  substi- 
tuted for  the  fine?  It  has  already  been  stated  that 
suspension  from  library  privileges  is  in  use  as  a  pen- 
alty to  a  considerable  extent,  and  there  seems  to  be 
no  "reason  why  this  should  not  be  extended  to  the 
case  of  overdue  books.  There  might,  for  instance,  be 
a  rule  that  for  every  day  of  illegal  retention  of  a 
book   the  holder  should  be  suspended  from  library 

•Figures   for   1901. 


8  LIBRARY  ESSAYS 

privileges  for  one  week.  The  date  of  expiration  of  the 
suspension  would  be  noted  on  the  holder's  card,  and 
the  card  would  Dot  be  returned  to  him  before  that 
date. 

This  plan  would  probably  have  interesting  re- 
sults which  there  is  not  time  to  anticipate  here.  But 
as  long  as  books  cost  money  and  librarians  refuse 
to  work  altogether  for  love,  financial  considerations 
must  play  a  large  part  in  library  changes.  The  only 
way  in  which  fines  can  be  abolished  without  decreas- 
ing income  is  to  make  the  abolition  a  condition  of  an 
increased  appropriation,  which,  of  course,  could  be 
done  by  the  appropriating  body.  The  making  of  such 
a  condition  is  extremely  unlikely.  Hence,  if  we  agree 
that  fines  are  undesirable  wre  must  regard  their  ab- 
olition as  an  unattainable  ideal.  We  may,  however, 
treat  them  so  as  to  minimize  their  bad  effect,  and 
this,  I  believe,  may  be  done  in  either  or  both  of  the 
following  two  ways : 

(1)  We  may  emphasize  the  punitive  value  of 
the  fine  and  at  the  same  time  increase  its  value  as  a 
source  of  revenue  by  making  it  larger.  This  would 
doubtless  decrease  the  number  of  overdue  books,  and 
the  exact  point  where  the  increase  should  stop  would 
be  the  point  where  this  decrease  should  so  balance 
the  increase  of  fines  as  to  make  the  total  receipts  a 
maximum;  or,  if  this  maximum  should  greatly  ex- 
ceed the  revenue  received  from  fines  under  the  old 
arrangement,  then  the  rate  could  be  still  farther  in- 
creased until  the  total  receipts  fell  to  the  old  amount. 
The  practical  method  would  be  to  increase  the  fines 
by  a  fraction  of  a  cent  per  day  at  intervals  of  several 
months,  comparing  the  total  receipts  for  each  inter- 
val with  that  of  the  corresponding  period  under  the 
old  arrangement;  and  stopping  when  this  sum 
showed   signs  of   decrease. 


TxVINS  AND  PENALTIES  9 

(O)  We  may  give  the  librarian  the  option  of  sub- 
stituting suspension  for  the  fine    whenever,    in    Ins 
judgment,  this  is  advisable.    This  is  the  course  pur- 
sued  by  the  law  when  it  gives  to  the  trial  judge  the 
option  of  fining  or  imprisoning  an  offender     Lucases 
where  a  fine  is  no  punishment  at  all,  and  where  books 
are  kept  overtime  deliberately,  suspension   from  li- 
brary privileges  would  probably  prove  salutary,     a 
variant  of  the  second  plan  would  be  to  allow  the  cul- 
prit himself  to  substitute  suspension  for  his  fine,     ins 
in  effect  is  what  the  offender  in  the  police  court  does 
when  he  avows  that  he  has  not  the  money  to  pay  his 
fine  and  is  sent  to  jail  to    work  it    off.     At   present 
when  a  library  offender  is  manifestly  unable  to  pay 
his  fine  there  is  usually  no  alternative  but  to  remit 
it  or  to  denv  the  culprit  access  to  the  library  until 
it  is  paid— in   many   cases   an   unreasonably    heavj 

punishment.  .. 

Of  course  there  is  no  reason  why  all  these  modifi- 
cations of  existing  rules  should  not  be  made  together. 
According  to  this  plan  fines  would  be  raised  and  sus- 
pension would  he  substituted  in  any  ease  at  tie-  libra- 
rian's option  and  in  all  eases  where  the  person  fined 
avows  that  he  is  unable  to  pay  his  tine.  The  rates  ran 
be  so  adjusted  that  under  this  plan  there  is  no  de- 
crease of  revenue,  but  rather  a  net  increase 

Of  course  the  adoption  of  such  rules  would  be  re- 
garded bv  a  large  portion  of  the  public  as  a  curtail- 
ment of  privileges,  but  such  an  outcry  as  it  would 
probablv  raise  ought  not  to  be  (.bject.onabh-  as  it  IS 
a  necessary  step  in  the  instruction  of  the  users  of  a 
library  regarding  the  proper  function  of  penalties 
for  infraction  of  its  rules.  These  rules  an-  for  the 
benefit  of  the  majority  and  the  good  sense  of  that  n.a- 
joritv  ought  to,  and  doubtless  would,  come  to  the 
rescue  of  the  library  authorities  on  short  notice. 


10  LIBRARY  ESSAYS 

As  long  as  the  library  fine  is  a  recognized  penalty, 
numerous  petty  questions  will  continue  to  arise  re- 
garding its  collection,  registration,  and  use.  Any  ex- 
haustive treatment  of  these  is  impossible  in  the  limits 
of  a  single  paper  and  I  have  chosen  to  neglect  most 
of  them  in  order  to  dwell  on  the  question  in  its  larger 
aspects.  It  is  the  exaction  of  the  fine,  after  all,  that 
is  the  library  penalty— the  money  is  part  of  the  li- 
brary income  and  its  collection  and  disposition  are 
properly  questions  of  finance.  One  point,  however, 
regarding  the  disposition  of  the  fines  bears  directly 
on  what  has  been  said.  In  municipal  public  libraries 
like  that  of  Boston,  where  the  city  requires  that  the 
fines  shall  be  turned  directly  into  the  public  treasury 
and  not  retained  for  library  use,  the  substitution  of 
a  different  penalty  would  presumably  involve  no  dim- 
inution of  income.  From  ordinary  considerations 
of  equity,  however,  it  seems  to  me  that  this  disposi- 
tion of  the  fines  is  objectionable.  If  the  fines  are  to  be 
turned  into  the  city  treasury  they  should  be  placed 
to  the  credit  of  the  library  appropriation  as  they  are 
in  Brooklyn. 

Regarding  the  collection  of  fines  there  are  one  or 
two  points  that  bear  directly  on  their  efficiency  as  a 
punitive  measure.  First,  shall  fines  be  charged?  It 
seems  a  hardship  to  refuse  a  well-known  member  a 
book  because  he  does  not  happen  to  have  with  him 
the  change  to  pay  a  15  cent  fine.  This  point  of  view, 
however,  loses  sight  again  of  the  element  of  punish- 
ment. When  the  delinquent  who  is  fined  a  dollar  in 
the  police  court  does  not  have  the  money  with  him, 
does  he  request  the  magistrate  to  charge  it  and  send 
in  a  bill  for  the  month's  penalties  all  at  once?  The 
true  method,  I  am  convinced,  is  to  insist  on  cash  pay- 
ment of  fines,  and  if  this  is  done  promptly  their 
character  as  penalties  will  be  more  generally  recog- 
nized. 


PAINS  AND  PENALTI]  -  11 

Another  point  in  regard  to  the  collection  of  fines 
is  their  effect  on  the  assistants  themselves.  In  every 
library  a  stream  of  money  passes  in  at  the  desk  in 
very  small  amounts.  This  must  all  be  accounted  for, 
and  we  have  the  alternative  of  requiring  vouchers 
for  every  cent  or  of  simply  keeping  a  memorandum 
account  and  seeing  that  the  cash  corresponds  with  it 
at  the  close  of  the  day. 

This  latter  plan,  in  some  form,  is  usually  adopted. 
To  misappropriate  funds  under  these  circumstances 
is  not  difficult,  and  I  submit  that  it  is  not  right  to 
place  a  large  number  of  young  girls  in  a  situation 
where  such  misappropriation  is  easy  and  safe.  In 
spite  of  Mark  Twain,  who  prays  that  he  may  be  led 
into  temptation  early  and  often,  that  he  may  get  ac- 
customed to  it,  I  do  not  believe  that  this  is  a  good 
general  policy  to  pursue.  We  all  know  of  cases  where 
assistants  have  fallen  into  temptation,  and  we  should 
not  hold  the  library  altogether  blameless  in  the  mat- 
ter. But  on  general  principles  such  a  plan  is  not  good 
business.  Every  one  who  is  responsible  for  money  col- 
lected must  show  vouchers  that  he  turns  over  every 
cent  that  has  been  given  to  him.  Why  should  the  li- 
brary assistant  be  an  exception?  I  look  to  see  some 
form  of  cash  register  on  every  (barging  desk  in  the 
ideal  library  of  the  future,  nor  can  I  see  that  its  use 
would  be  a  reflection  on  the  honesty  of  the  assistants 
any  more  than  the  refusal  of  a  bank  to  cash  an  im- 
properly endorsed  cheek  is  a  reflection  on  the  honesty 
of  the  holder. 

This  is  on  the  supposition  that  we  are  to  retain 
the  tine  as  a  penalty.  Such  considerations,  of  course, 
weigh  down  the  balance  still  more  strongly  in  favor 
of  its  abolition. 

I  have  devoted  so  much  space  t<>  the  penalty  for 
keeping  books  overtime  because  the  rule  on  this 
subject  is  the  one  that   is  chiefly   broken   in   a   free 


12  LIBRARY  ESSAYS 

public  library.  Other  offences  are  usually  dealt  with 
by  suspension,  and  very  properly  so.  For  the  loss  or 
accidental  injury  of  a  book,  however,  a  fine  is  again 
the  penalty,  and  here,  as  the  offence  is  the  causing 
of  a  definite  money  loss  to  the  library,  there  is  more 
reason  for  it.  The  money  in  this  case,  indeed,  is  to 
be  regarded  as  damages,  and  its  payment  is  rather 
restitution  than  punishment.  Even  here,  however,  the 
argument  against  money  transactions  with  a  free 
institution  seems  to  hold  good.  There  is  no  reason 
in  the  majority  of  cases  why  he  who  loses  or  destroys 
a  hook  should  not  give  to  the  library  a  new  copy  in- 
stead of  the  price  thereof,  and  for  minor  injury  sus- 
pension is  surely  an  adequate  penalty. 

Here  we  may  pause  for  a  moment  to  ask :  What 
right  has  a  library  to  inflict  any  penalties  at  all?  I 
must  leave  the  full  discussion  of  this  question  to  the 
lawyers,  but  I  am  quite  sure  that  libraries,  like  some 
other  corporations,  often  enact  and  enforce  rules 
that  they  have  no  legal  right  to  make.  To  cite  an  in- 
stance that  came  under  my  own  observation,  the 
Brooklyn  Public  Library's  rules  were  for  more  than 
a  year,  according  to  good  authority,  absolutely  in- 
valid because  they  had  not  been  enacted  by  the  Mu- 
nicipal Assembly,  and  that  library  had  no  right  to 
collect  a  single  fine.  Yet  during  this  time  it  did  col- 
lect fines  amounting  to  several  thousand  dollars,  and 
not  a  word  of  protest  was  heard  from  the  public.  In 
this  and  similar  cases  we  are  getting  down  to  first 
principles — the  consent  of  the  governed;  which, 
whether  based  on  ignorance  or  knowledge,  is  what 
we  must  rely  on  in  the  end  for  the  enforcement  of  law 
in  self-governing  communities.  I  am  afraid  that  it 
is  this  general  consent,  in  a  good  many  instances, 
that  is  enabling  us  to  enforce  our  regulations,  rather 
than  any  right  derived  from  positive  law.  To  take  a 
related  instance,  it  is  by  no  means  certain  that  libra- 


PAINS  AND   PENALTIES  13 

ties  are  not  breaking  the  law  of  libel  every  time  they 

send  out  an  overdue  postal  notice.  The  courts  have 
held  that  a  dun  on  a  postal  is  libellous,  and  our  over- 
due cards  specifically  inform  the  person  to  whom  they 
are  addressed  that  he  owes  money  to  the  library,  and 

threaten  him  with  punishment  if  the  debt  is  not  paid. 
Yet  although  occasional  delinquents  remark  that  the 

law  is  violated  by  these  postals,  public  libraries  ... 
all  parts  of  the  Cnited  States  continue  to  send  then. 
out  by  thousands  daily  with  few  protests.  This  seems 
clearly  a  case  where  the  public  consents  to  a  puni- 
tive measure  of  doubtful  legality,  and  approves  it  for 

the  public  j;ood. 

The  second  of  the  two  classes  into  which  we  haw 
divided  infractions  of  library  rules  consists  of  those 
that  are  also  contrary  to  statute  law  or  municipal 
regulation.     How  far  shall  these  be  dealt  with  purely 
from  the  library  standpoint,  and  when  shall  they  be 
turned  over  to  the  public-  authorities?     If  a  small  boy 
veils  at  the  desk-assistant  through  door  or  window  he 
is  a  disturber  of  the  peace;  if  he  throws  at  her  some 
handy  missile,  such  as  a  vegetable  or  a  tm  can,  as 
occasionally  happens  in  certain  sections  of  unregen- 
erate  New  York,  he  is  technically  committing  an  as- 
sault; shall  he  be  handed  over  to  the  police? 

Of  course  one  must  not  treat  trifles  too  seriously. 
Yet  probably  libraries  have  been  somewhat  too  timid 
about  dealing  with  petty  offences.  There  is  an  un- 
willingness to  drag  the  libraries  into  the  pohce  im- 
ports that  seems  to  be  a  relic  of  the  days  when  all 
libraries  were  haunts  of  scholarly  seclusion. 

The  modern  public  library  cannot  afford  to  W 
considered  an  -easy  mark-  by  those  who  wish  to  in- 
dulge in  horse  play  or  commit  petty  misdemeanors, 
and  in  some  cases  it  is  in  danger  of  getting  this  rep- 

ntation.  .  ,      ,• 

When  we  come  to  more  serious  offences,  th<    U- 


U  LIBRARY  ESSAYS 

brary's  duty  is  clearer.  Theft,  wilful  mutilation  of 
books,  or  grave  disorder  must  of  course  be  punished. 
In  many  cases,  however,  the  detection  of  the  first  two 
offences  is  very  difficult.  Theft  from  open  shelves  is 
easy.  For  the  thousands  of  books  lost  yearly  in  this 
way  hardly  a  culprit  meets  punishment.  I  have 
known  a  professional  detective  to  confess  that  the 
open  shelf  baffled  him.  "If  you  will  only  shut  the 
books  up,"  he  said,  "I  can  find  out  who  takes  'em ; 
but  here  everybody  is  taking  out  books  and  walking 
around  with  them."  When  the  professional  acknowl- 
edges himself  beaten,  what  shall  the  librarian  do? 
Mutilation  is  even  harder  to  detect.  In  both  these 
cases  the  offender  has  simply  to  wait  his  opportunity. 
Sooner  or  later  there  will  be  a  second  or  two  when 
no  assistant  is  looking,  even  if  the  man  is  under  long- 
standing suspicion,  and  in  that  brief  time  the  book 
is  slipped  into  the  pocket  or  the  leaf  is  torn  out.  Even 
when  the  offender  is  caught  in  the  act,  the  magis- 
trate may  not  hold,  or  the  jury  may  fail  to  convict. 
A  persistent  mutilator  of  books  in  one  of  our  branch 
libraries  escaped  punishment  last  winter  because  the 
custodian  of  the  reading-room  where  he  was  caught 
did  not  wait  until  the  leaf  on  which  he  was  working 
was  actually  severed.  The  man  asserted  that  the 
sharp  lead  pencil  that  he  was  using  to  separate  the 
leaf  was  merely  being  employed  to  mark  a  place,  and 
thus  by  confessing  to  a  minor  defacement  he  escaped 
the  penalty  of  the  more  serious  offence. 

For  a  library  that  is  thus  forced  to  appeal  con- 
tinually to  the  law  to  protect  its  assistants,  its  users, 
and  its  collections,  a  manual  of  library  law  would  be 
useful,  and  I  am  not  sure  that  the  appointment  of 
a  committee  of  this  Association  to  take  the  matter 
in  charge  would  not  be  eminently  justified. 

It  is  the  misfortune  of  this  paper  that  it  has  been 


PAINS  AND   PENALTIES  15 

obliged  to  dwell  on  the  darker  side  of  library  work. 
It  is  hardly  necessary  to  remind  an  audience  of  libra- 
rians that  this  is  not  the  prominent  side.  All  users 
of  a  library  are  not  delinquents  or  law-breakers,  and 
the  assistants  have  other  and  better  work  than  to  act 
as  fine-collectors  and  detectives.  The  sombre  effect 
of  what  you  have  just  heard  should  have  been  dis- 
pelled by  a  paper  on  "Rewards  and  delights  of  libra- 
ry work,"  but  this  the  Program  Committee  has  seen 
fit  to  omit,  probably  because  it  is  not  necessary  to 
emphasize  the  obvious. 


I  row  UISKAKIAXS  CHOOSI-;  HOOKS 

The  form  in  which  this  Bubject  is  stated  remoi 
it  from  tli«-  region  of  ethics  and  brings  it  down  to  the 
hard  realms  of  fact  I  am  nol  to  tell  you  how  libra- 
rians onghl  to  select  books,  but  how  they  do  selecl 
them.  I  shall  assume,  however,  that  yon  do  not  cur.' 
to  have  this  paper  filled  with  instances  of  abnormal 
and  unprofitable  selection,  bnt  that  you  wish  to  hear 
of  the  normal  and  the  unobjectionable.  Booksellers 
tell  us  that  many  buyers  of  hooks  are  governed  in 
their  (dunce  by  the  color  of  the  covers,  and  I  have 
suspected  that  some  librarians  are  influenced  in  the 
same  way.  Some  librarians  appear  to  object  to  works 
that  are  less  than  one  century  old;  others  are  on  rec- 
ord as  discouraging  the  purchase  of  fiction  less  than 
one  year  of  age.  Some  librarians  have  a  prejudice 
against  certain  (dasses  of  hooks  and   an   inordinate 

love  for  others. 

The  only  things  that  should  be  considered  by  the 
librarian  in  buying  books  for  his  library  are  the 
aeeds  of  the  community  that  he  serves,  the  capabil- 
ity of  the  various  books  under  consideration  to 
satisfy  those  needs,  and  the  financial  ability  of  the 
library  to  secure  what   is  needed. 

1  shall  take  up  these  points  in  order.  First,  the 
needs  of  the  community.  These  are  aot  necessarily 
to  be  measured  by  its  demands,  otherwise  the  libra- 
rian's labor  would  be  considerably  lightened  Unfor- 
tunately, when  a  community  needs  a  given  class  of 
books  very  desperately   it   is  often     serenely     uncon- 


18  LIBRARY  ESSAYS 

scious  of  the  fact.  To  the  librarian  falls  the  task  not 
only  of  determining  what  the  need  is  and  of  filling 
it,  but  also  of  arousing  a  wholesome  consciousness  of 
it.  In  this  educational  work  he  may  be,  and  often  is, 
aided  by  the  teacher,  the  clergyman,  or  even  by  the 
users  of  the  library  themselves.  Hence  the  impor- 
tance of  getting  in  touch  with  all  the  agencies  that 
may  do  work  along  this  line.  There  is  nothing  that 
calls  for  more  tact.  With  the  children  it  is  compara- 
tively easy  to  point  out  a  deficiency,  but  a  direct 
attempt  with  a  self-respecting  adult  may  end  in  dis- 
aster, and  a  season  or  two  of  well-meant  effort  may 
result  in  weakening  the  librarian's  influence  or  even 
in  losing  him  his  position.  But  one  can  rarely  teach 
tact  to  the  tactless,  and  tact  is  something  that  every 
librarian  must  have,  so  that  this  lopping-off  process, 
after  all,  may  simply  be  regarded  as  a  phase  of  na- 
ture's elimination  of  the  unfit.  One  way  of  ascertain- 
ing the  proportional  demand  for  various  classes  of 
literature  in  a  community,  is  by  examining  the  class- 
percentage  of  circulation.  By  comparing  these  with 
the  corresponding  volume  percentages  we  may  see 
whether  the  demands  of  the  community  are  being  met, 
and  by  comparison  with  the  percentages  of  an  ideal 
library  we  may  see  whether  such  demand  ought  to 
be  met  or  not.  Of  course,  the  ideal  is  somewhat  in- 
definite. One  may  accept  the  suggested  proportions 
in  the  A.L.A.  catalog,  or  average  those  of  several  li- 
braries of  high  class;  or  one  may  construct  an  ideal 
of  one's  own.  In  any  case,  the  ideal  proportions  wdll 
evidently  vary  with  conditions  of  place  and  time.  To 
show  how  this  test  may  be  applied,  consider  the  per- 
centage of  science  circulated  last  year  in  the  New 
York  Public  library.  This  varied  from  3  to  28  per 
cent  in  the  various  branches,  and  was  9  per  cent 
for  the  whole  library.     The  percentage  of  science  on 


HOW'   LIBRARIANS  CHOOSE    BOOKS       L9 

the  shelves  similarly  varied  from  6  to   18  per  cent, 

and  was  also  it  for  the  whole  library.  In  our  Library 
sociology  and  philology  arc  included  in  the  science 
report,  and  the  percentage  of  these  three  classes  com- 
bined in  the  old  ALA.  catalog  is  17.  If  this  is  to  he 
taken  as  the  standard,  therefore,  tie-  library  as  a 
whole  falls  below  it,  though  individual  branches  ap- 
proach or  even  exceed  it.  As  a  whole,  however,  the  de- 
mand and  the  supply  balance  pretty  well.  There  is 
no  doubt,  however,  that  in  this  and  most  other  Libra- 
ries the  demand  in  this  class  is  too  small  ami  w 
stimulation.  Of  course,  this  is  broughl  up  merely  as 
an  instance  of  how  fertile  this  comparison  of  per- 
centages is  in  information,  and  how  valuable  in  as- 
certaining whether  the  demands  of  a  community  are 
supplied,  and  whether  they  ought  to  be  supplied, 
along  any  given  line. 

We  will  assume  that  either  in  the  ways  indicated, 
or  in  some  other,  the  librarian  has  satisfied  himself 
that  he  understands  what  his  community  needs.  Efow 
shall  he  find  the  hooks  that  will  satisfy  that  need, 
and  when  they  are  found  lor,  still  more,  when  they 
obtrude  themselves  on  his  notice  I  how  shall  he  know 
that  they  arc  what  they  claim  to  he? 

In  order  to  find  what  he  wants,  the  Librarian  nat- 
urally turns  at  first  to  such  classed  bibliographies 
as  he  has  at  hand,  including  publishers'  trade  lists. 
Unfortunately,  books  vevy  rapidly  become  out  of 
print,  and  if  his  bibliography  or  list  is  even  two  or 
three  years  old  he  cannot  he  sure  that  his  work  of 
selection  is  not  in  vain.  The  value  of  the  A  LA.  cat- 
alog has  been  much  impaired  by  its  inclusion  of  out- 
of-print  hooks,  and  as,  now  that  it  is  several  years 
(dd,  the  number  of  these  is  Increasing  daily,  its  use 
has  become  more  and  more  vexatious,  both  to  Libra- 
rians and  publishers.     It  is  to  he  hoped  that  in  the  new 


20  LIBRARY  ESSAYS 

edition  now  preparing  the  out-of-print  books  will  be 
omitted.  Fortunately  we  now  have  at  our  disposal 
yearly  alphabetical  lists  of  in-print  books.  Such  are 
the  index  to  the  Trade  list  annual  and  the  United 
States  catalog  for  American  editions,  and  the  Index 
to  the  reference  catalog  of  current  literature  for 
British    books. 

If  the  needs  of  your  library  require  that  some  one 
•  lass  should  be  largely  replenished,  you  may  call  in 
expert  knowledge.  Some  teacher  or  student  who  is 
a  specialist  in  that  subject  is  generally  not  hard  to 
find,  and  his  advice  will  be  of  the  greatest  value.  Spe- 
cial bibliographies  are  valuable  in  inverse  ratio  to 
their  length — a  complete  list  of  works  on  Egyptol- 
ogy, for  instance,  is  hardly  more  valuable  to  the  ordi- 
nary small  library  than  a  full,  unclassified  list  of 
books  in-print  on  all  subjects. 

The  majority  of  the  small  library's  purchases  are 
books  as  currently  issued.  For  these  the  Publishers' 
weekly  is  indispensable.  Some  librarians  prefer  to 
look  at  every  book  before  purchasing,  and  arrange 
with  publishers  or  booksellers  to  send  large  numbers 
of  books  weekly  or  even  daily  on  approval.  This,  if 
there  is  sufficient  time,  is  a  good  plan,  but  it  is  cer- 
tainly wasteful.  There  are  many  books  which  we  can 
surely  reject  or  accept  from  the  author  and  title  en- 
try in  the  Publishers'  weekly  as  well  as  if  the  actual 
book  were  in  hand.  If  a  mistake  is  made  it  will  be, 
or  should  be,  discovered  as  soon  as  the  book  is  re- 
ceived, and  the  volume  can  then  be  exchanged.  Only 
the  doubtful  books  need  be  asked  for  on  approval, 
and  these  will  generally  be  found  to  constitute  a  rela- 
tively small  percentage  of  the  whole. 

The  data  on  which  the  librarian  may  rely  to  ac- 
cept or  reject  from  a  mere  list  of  books  are:  1)  the 
author's  name;  2)  the  title,  with  such  brief  annotation 


How    LIBRARIANS  CHOOSE   BOOKS       21 

as  may  follow  it:  3)  notices  in  the  hook  magazines; 
4  i  the  publisher's  name.  The  author  stands  for  much 
— the  style,  method  of  treatment,  the  fitness  to  print 
of  what  he  has  to  say,  the  readableness  of  his  book, 

and  so  « »n.     We  all  know    that  there  arc  ant  hops  whom 

wc  can  absolutely  rely  (mi  in  these  respects,  either  for 
acceptance  or  rejection.  It  is  thus  necessary  that  the 
librarian  may  knov  the  uniformly  good  author  and 
the  uniformly  had  ones;  bul  experience  must  be  his 
guide,  as  this  lies  somewhat  without  the  scope  «»f 
the  present  paper.  The  title  should  tell  us  something 
about  the  contents  of  the  book,  but,  unfortunately, 
the  aim  of  the  title-maker  is  too  often  not  to  give  in- 
formation but  to  stimulate  curiosity.  In  some  cj 
this  is  carried  so  far  that  the  title  of  a  hook  Leaves 
ns  in  absolute  ignorance  as  to  whether  it  is  sociology, 
travel,  or  fiction.  One  is,  therefore,  generally  obliged 
to  refer  to  some  kind  of  descriptive  note  to  get  the 
desired  information.  Such  notes  are  of  ten  appended 
to  lists  and  the  Librarian  does  well  to  remember  that 
they  are  generally  not  intended  to  be  critical.  For 
criticism  we  must  go  to  the  reviews,  and  here  I  have 
always  felt,  and  still  feel,  that  the  librarian  has  a  real 
grievance.  The  hook  periodicals  are  many,  and  every 
daily  paper  has  its  critical  page.  This  mass  of  matter 
is  made  accessible  through  the  recently  issued  Index 
to  hooks  reviewed.  Yet  with  it  all  there  is  not  One 
place  where  the  Librarian  may  Look  for  brief  notes 
on  current  hooks,  telling  him  just  what  he  wants  to 
know  and  no  more,  and  with  the  confidence  that  the 
information  is  quite  free  from  bias.  In  saying  this 
I  am  quite  ready  to  give  credit  to  our  best  boob  re- 
views for  their  many  good  qualities.  "What  I  mean  is, 
that  the  reviews  are  written  lor  the  reader  or  the 
bookseller,  never  for  the  Librarian.  In  making  use  of 
those  at   his  disposal  the  lihrarian   most   learn  t«»  dis- 


22  LIBRARY  ESSAYS 

criminate,  to  weigh  authorities,  and  to  pick  out  the 
occasional  sharp  needle  of  valuable  criticism  from 
the  haystack  of  discursive  talk. 

Lastly,  the  selector  may  rely  on  the  name  of  the 
publisher.  This  may  tell  him  much  or  little,  but  it 
may  at  any  rate  guarantee  good  paper  and  type,  and 
it  may  also  assure  him  that  the  book  contains  no  im- 
proprieties. Unfortunately,  it  cannot  insure  against 
dullness — publisher's  readers  are  but  mortal,  and 
the  best  will  occasionally  reject  a  pearl  and  take  in 
a  pebble. 

When  all  is  said  and  done,  of  course  the  intelli- 
gent man  who  has  read  a  book  carefully  knows  more 
about  it  than  he  could  have  found  out  by  reading  all 
the  annotations  and  reviews  in  the  world.  The  libra- 
rian of  a  small  library  can  read  every  book  under 
consideration.  The  head  of  a  large  library  cannot  do 
this;  the  larger  his  daily  or  weekly  order,  the  more 
he  must  rely  on  the  recommendations  and  opinions 
of  others,  and  even  the  books  that  he  orders  on  ap- 
proval he  cannot  read  himself. 

Here,  perhaps,  is  the  place  to  note  that  not  every 
librarian  is  his  own  selector.  The  responsible  deci- 
sion in  these  matters  rests,  of  course,  in  most  libra- 
ries, with  a  committee  of  some  sort;  but  if  the  libra- 
rian is  one  in  whose  judgment  this  committee  has 
confidence  (and  no  other  should  hold  the  position  at 
all )  he  will  have  a  practically  free  hand.  For  decision 
in  regard  to  doubtful  books,  especially  current  fic- 
tion, some  libraries  have  special  reading  committees, 
often  composed  of  ladies,  but  it  can  hardly  be  said 
that  the  results  arrived  at  in  this  way  are  satisfac- 
tory. It  is  vastly  better  for  the  librarian  to  select  a 
few  persons,  either  on  his  staff  or  outside  of  it,  on 
whom  he  can  rely  to  give  him  information,  after  read- 
ing a  book,  on  specific  points  regarding  which  he  may 


HOW  LIBRARIANS  CHOOSE   BOOKS       2-i 

require  it.  Especially  in  considering  current  fiction 
should  the  reader  be  able  to  distinguish  between  mere 
outspokenness,  such  as  we  find  in  the  Bible  or 
Shakespeare,  and  immoral  or  degrading  tendency. 
The  ordinary  woman  reader,  especially  the  young  wo- 
man, will  often  condemn  a  hook  for  frankness  when 
its  tendency  is  decidedly  good,  and  pass  a  clever, 
pleasant  tale  whose  influence  on  many  persons  is  bad, 
though  conveyed  entirely  by  indirection,  of  course 
the  librarian  or  the  committee  may  make  a  general 
rule  to  exclude  frankness,  which,  personally,  I  think 
is  a  mistake,  though  I  am  free  to  acknowledge  that 
there  are  boundaries  beyond  which  even  a  well-mean- 
ing writer  should  not  be  allowed  to  go. 

Of  course,  I  can  say  but  a  word  here  on  the  trash 
question  in  fiction.  But  be  not,  I  pray,  too  stern  a 
censor.  When  selecting  for  a  free  public  library  judge 
books  largely  by  their  fruits.  If  a  story  sends  a  boy 
out  with  a  pistol  to  play  robber — somewhat  too  much 
in  earnest — it  is  surely  bad;  if  it  makes  him  love  jus- 
tice and  incline  to  pity,  it  cannot  be  altogether  out 
of  place  in  a  library  though  it  may  be  unreal  and  in- 
ane. Its  characters  may  be  wooden  puppets  to  you, 
while  to  the  young  reader  they  are  heroes,  full  of 
the  divine  qualities  of  courage,  sympathy,  and  tender- 
ness. As  the  reader  thinketh  so  is  the  book — not  as 
you,  wise  critic,  in  your  plentitude  of  knowledge, 
would  have  it  to  be. 

The  third  consideration  that  must  govern  us  in 
our  choice,  though  I  have  put  it  last,  is  really  the  con- 
trolling one.  Unless  there  is  something  in  the  trea- 
sury we  may  choose  books  all  day,  and  our  selection 
is  as  unavailing  as  the  street  child's  choice  of  jewels 
in  a  shop  window;  and  the  more  money  one  has  at 
one's  disposal,  the  easier  it  is  to  spend  it.  I  must 
speak  of  the  library's  finances  here,  however,  only  as 


24  LIBRARY  ESSAYS 

they  affect  the  librarian's  choice  of  books.  Given  a 
specified  book  appropriation,  the  librarian  must 
often  have  to  decide  upon  the  best  way  to  spend  it, 
and  upon  the  proper  distribution  of  expenditure  over 
the  year. 

All  these  things  influence  his  choice  more  or  less. 
From  one  point  of  view  it  seems  well  to  expend  the 
greater  part  of  the  amount  as  soon  as  it  becomes 
available,  especially  if  a  large  number  of  pressing 
needs  have  been  waiting  for  satisfaction.  The  trouble 
is  that  one  cannot  foresee  what  needs  will  also  press 
for  satisfaction  during  the  coming  year.  Another 
plan  is  to  distribute  the  expenditure  pretty  evenly 
without  making  any  too  strict  rule  in  the  matter. 

With  the  first  arrangement  the  librarian  will  be 
apt  to  buy  a  good  many  of  the  larger  and  more  ex- 
pensive works — and,  perhaps,  be  sorry  for  it  after- 
ward. With  the  latter  he  will  purchase  more  cur- 
rent literature  and  satisfy  his  readers  better,  though 
the  general  quality  of  his  purchases  may  not  be  so 
high. 

Perhaps  a  compromise  may  bring  the  best  re- 
sults. He  who  decides  at  the  outset  what  reference 
works  he  can  afford  to  buy  during  the  year,  and  how 
much  he  must  spend  at  once  on  replacements  and 
duplicates,  and  after  deducting  these  fixed  charges 
from  his  appropriation  divides  the  remainder  into 
weekly  or  monthly  portions  for  current  purchases, 
will  not  go  far  wrong. 

To  the  financial  section  of  this  discussion  belongs 
also  the  question  of  editions.  Shall  the  librarian 
choose  the  best  or  the  cheapest?  Which  is  the  best 
and  which  is  the  cheapest  for  his  purpose?  In  the 
first  place,  we  may  exclude  the  extremes.  Editions  de 
luxe  have  no  place  in  the  ordinary  free  library,  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  we  should  not  think  of    offering 


HOW  LIBRARIANS  CHOOSE   BOOKS 

to  a  self-respecting  reader  books  printed  od  bad  pa- 
per with  worse  type,  simply  because  thej  can  be  pur- 
chased at  a  phenomenally  low  figure.     But   between 

these  two  there  are  many  grades  of  beauty  and  dur- 
ability. Here,  as  elsewhere,  there  is  safety  in  the  gold- 
en mean.  As  far  as  bindings  of  exceptional  durabil- 
ity go,  the  question  of  paying  extra  for  them  depends 

on  the  use  that  is  to  be  made  of  the  book.  If  it  will 
circulate  so  little  that  the  ordinary  binding  will  hist 
twenty  years.  why  spend  money  for  anything  strong- 
er? Again,  if  it  get  such  hard  treatment  that  it  must 
be  replaced  in  a  year's  time,  why  put  on  it  ;i  binding 
that  would  outlive  ten  years  of  such  vicissitudes? 
Still  again,  with  current  books  of  popular  interest, 
the  library  cannot  wait  to  have  them  put  into  special 
bindings,  but  for  standard,  popular  works,  which 
will  have  steady  but  not  hard  use,  and  which  can  he 
ordered  three  months  before  they  are  to  be  used, 
money  spent  on  special  bindings  may  be  economy  in 
the  end.  Here,  however,  we  are  drifting  a  tittle  way 
from  our  subject. 

_  The  three  points  that  we  must  take  into  consider- 
ation in  selecting  books,  namely,  the  community's 
need,  the  determination  of  what  books  will  satisfy 
it,  and  the  consideration  of  how  far  the  library's  fi- 
nancial condition  will  allow  it  to  go  in  that  direction, 
have  been  treated  separately,  but  it  must  be  evident 
that  they  are  in  reality  so  closely  connected  that  they 
act  and  react  on  each  other.  No  one  of  them  can  in 
practice  be  considered  apart  from  the  others.  Thus 
the  first  necessity  of  the  library  may  be  books  on 
music,  and  a  secondary  need  may  be  hooks  on  water 
supply.  It  may  so  happen,  however,  that  a  complete 
and  up-to-date  work  on  the  latter  subject,  we  will 
say,  has  just  been  issued  at  a  moderate  price,  while 
the  works  on  music  most  needed  are  expensive.    Tli«; 


26  LIBRARY  ESSAYS 

result  would  be  quite  different  from  that  reached  by 
a  consideration  of  the  first  point  alone.  Again,  we 
will  take  the  case  of  a  large  library  with  a  book  ap- 
propriation large  enough  to  buy  practically  all  that 
it  wants  in  current  literature.  This  fact  drops  point 
third  out  of  consideration  entirely  and  modifies  both 
the  others  considerably.  If  the  library  wants  both 
music  and  hydraulics,  and  has  money  enough  for 
only  one,  we  most  consider  carefully  which  can  best 
be  spared;  but  if  the  funds  are  at  hand  for  both,  all 
this  thought  is  not  needed.  In  like  manner,  even  if 
there  are  funds  for  both,  but  only  for  one  or  two 
books  on  each  subject,  we  must  select  the  books  we 
need  most,  which  we  need  to  do  if  we  have  money  to 
buy  all  we  want  on  both  subjects.  In  short,  the  work 
of  selecting  is  more  difficult,  as  has  been  said,  with 
a  few  books  than  with  many,  but  the  consolation 
must  be  that  the  result  is  better.  The  temptation, 
when  one  has  plenty  of  money,  is  to  let  selection  go 
by  the  board  altogether  and  to  garner  in  wheat  and 
tares  alike,  trusting  to  the  public  to  do  the  sorting. 

We  may  be  almost  alarmed  to  learn  from  the 
physiologist  of  the  complicated  vital  processes  that 
go  on  within  us,  of  which  the  cessation  means  death, 
and  yet  of  which  we  remain  in  daily  ignorance.  These 
things  often  regulate  themselves.  The  selection  of 
books,  like  the  inflation  of  the  lungs,  may  be  per- 
formed almost  automatically,  yet  with  substantial 
success.  It  is  instructive  to  see  how  nearly  the  class 
percentages  in  the  ordinary  library  approximate  to 
the  average  without  any  conscious  regulation  by  the 
librarian.  The  community  is  apt  to  get  about  what 
it  needs  in  fairly  good  quality  and  without  running 
its  library  into  debt.  Yet  there  can  surely  be  no 
harm  in  analyzing  a  little  the  work  of  selection,  nor 
can  there  be  any  objection  to  supplementing  by  con- 


HOW  LIBRARIANS  CHOOSE   BOOKS       27 

scious  action  work  that  has  gone  on,  however  welL 
chiefly  in  the  combined  subconsciousness  of  a  libra- 
rian and  the  community. 

Especially  is  this  desirable  in  making  the  distinc- 
tion, already  emphasized  at  the  opening  of  this  pa- 
per, between  what  the  community  wants  and  what 
it  needs.  The  fever  patient  who  needs  acid  some- 
times cries  for  a  pickle,  and  thus  cures  himself  in 
spite  of  his  nurse;  but  it  is  more  commonly  the  case 
that  the  patient's  need  is  masked  by  souk-  abnormal 
desire,  and  that  he  cries  for  pork-chops  or  lobster, 
or  something  else  that  would  kill  him.  We  can  hard- 
ly give  up  the  nurse,  therefore,  provided  she  knows 
her  business,  and  part  of  that  business  is  to  realize 
the  difference  between  a  mere  want  and  a  vital  need. 

So  with  the  librarian,  the  nurse  of  the  reading 
public.  Left  altogether  to  themselves  her  patients 
may  kill  themselves  with  pork  or  lobster;  it  is  her 
business  to  see  that  such  an  untoward  event  does  not 
occur. 

Those  of  us  to  whom  this  duty  has  been  intrusted, 
whether  we  are  librarians,  trustees,  or  the  members 
of  book-committees,  deserve  both  the  good-will  and 
the  sympathy  of  the  public;  and,  like  the  western  or- 
ganist, I  pray  that  we  may  not  be  shot.  We  are  do- 
ing our  best. 


THE  WORK  OF  THE  SMALL  PUBLIC  LIBRARY 

We  cannot  too  often  remind  ourselves  of  the  fact 
that  a  circulating  library  is  a  distributing  agency, 
and  as  such  has  points  in  common  with  other  such 
agencies.  The  whole  progress  of  civilization  is  de 
pendent  on  distribution — the  bringing  to  the  indi- 
vidual of  the  thing  he  wants  or  nerds.  The  library's 
activities  are,  therefore,  in  the  same  class  with  com- 
merce, and  the  tendency  of  modern  changes  in  the  li- 
brary is  to  make  the  analogy  closer  and  closer.  To 
recognize  this  fact  is  by  no  means  to  degrade  library 
work.  All  workers  fall  into  the  two  great  classes  of 
producers  and  distributors.  Civilization  can  get 
along  without  neither;  we  must  have  the  farmer  to 
grow  the  wheat  and  the  railway  to  market  it;  we 
must  have  the  author  to  write  the  book  and  the  pub- 
lisher and  the  bookseller  and  the  Librarian  to  place 
it  in  the  hands  of  those  who  can  use  it.  The  librarian 
is  not  a  producer;  he  takes  the  product  of  other  peo 
pie's  brains  and  distributes  it  ;  and  his  problem  is 
how  to  do  this  most  effectively. 

Do  not  misunderstand  me.  There  have  been  some 
recent  protests  against  treating  the  library  as  a  com- 
mercial instead  of  an  educational  institution.  The 
free  library  is  not  a  commercial  institution,  but  it 
an  agency  for  distributing  something,  and  there  are 
also  hundreds  of  other  agencies  for  distributing  other 
things.  The  objects  and  the  methods  of  distribution 
are  various,  but  certain  laws  apply  t<>  all  kinds  <>f 
distribution.    Hence  we  may  learn  a  good  deal  about 


30  LIBRARY  ESSAYS 

library  work  by  examining  to  see  what  it  has  in  com- 
mon with  other  kinds  of  distribution  and  in  what  re- 
spect it  differs  from  them. 

Now,  the  prime  factors  in  any  kind  of  distribu- 
tion are:  1,  the  products  to  be  distributed;  2,  the 
persons  to  whom  they  are  to  be  distributed;  3,  the 
distributors  and  methods  of  distribution.  I  know  no 
better  way  of  laying  the  basis  of  an  efficient  and  suc- 
cessful distribution  than  the  brief  study,  in  order, 
of  these  three  factors.. 

First  let  us  consider  the  things  that  we  are  to  dis- 
tribute, namely,  books.  And  at  the  outset  let  us  re- 
member that  although  these  things  are  apparently 
material,  as  much  so  as  butter  or  hats,  they  are  much 
more  than  this.  They  are  the  vehicles  for  conveying 
ideas,  so  that  a  library  is  a  concern  for  the  dissemin- 
ation of  ideas.  This  brings  it  in  line  with  another 
great  intellectual  and  moral  distributing  agency — 
the  school.  In  the  school  the  distributor  is  more  of- 
ten a  producer  than  in  the  library,  especially  in  the 
universities,  where  the  discoverer  of  new  facts  or 
laws  himself  imparts  them  to  his  students.  Yet  the 
school  is  essentially  a  distributing  rather  than  a  pro- 
ducing agency.  In  the  school,  however  the  means  of 
distribution  are  not  limited,  while  in  the  library  they 
are  pretty  strictly  confined  to  the  printed  book.  I 
know  that  there  are  some  people  who  believe  that 
the  library  is  growing  out  of  such  restrictions,  and 
that  its  mission  is  to  be  the  distribution  of  ideas 
through  any  and  all  mediums — the  spoken  word,  in 
lectures ;  the  pictures,  in  exhibitions  of  art ;  the  mus- 
eum specimen;  and  so  on.  We  should  welcome  all 
these  as  adjuncts  to  our  own  business,  and  when  we 
have  mastered  that  business  thoroughly  perhaps  we 
may  take  them  up  each  on  its  own  account.  Those 
who  love  books,  however,  will  want  to  see  the  distrib- 


THE   SMALL  PUBLIC   LIBRARX  ;;i 

ution  of  books  always  at  the  head  of  the  library 
tivities. 

And  it  may  be  kept  there,  provided  we  make 
everything  else  in  the  library  serve  as  guide-posts  to 
the  printed  records  on  the  shelves.  A  picture  bulle- 
tin, for  instance,  may  be  both  beautiful  and  useful, 
but  it  should  never  he  an  end  in  itself.  It  is  the  bait, 
if  we  may  so  speak,  for  tin-  list  of  books  that  accom- 
panies it.  The  pictures  excite  the  Interest  of  a  child 
who  sees  them  and  he  wants  to  know  more  aboul 
them.  The  list  tells  him  where  he  can  find  out,  and 
the  result  is  increased  use  of  the  library.  In  like  man- 
ner if  you  have  a  lecture  course,  or  a  loan  exhibition 
in  your  library,  see  that  it  is  made  a  means  of  stim- 
ulating  interest  in  your  hooks. 

I  have  said  that  in  distribution  we  bring  to  the 
individual  what  he  wants  or  what   he     oeeds.     That 
sounds  a  little  tautological,  but  it  is  not.     A  man  of- 
ten wants  whiskey  when    he  doesn't   need    it    at    all, 
and  conversely  a  boy  sometimes  needs  a  whipping 
but  he  doesn't  want  it.     So  with  the  reading  public. 
They  often  want  fiction  of  a  class  that   they  do  not 
need,  and  have  no  longing  for  hooks  that  would  real- 
ly benefit  them.     Here  we  may  note  a  difference 
tween  the  free  library  and  all  merely  commercial  s 
terns  of  distribution.    As  the  purpose  of  the  latter  is 
to  make  money,  wants  are     regarded     rather     than 
needs.     But  even  with  a  store  there  are  limitations. 
If  any  one  wants  an  injurious  article     for  instance, 
a  poison  or  an  explosive— the  law  steps  in  to  prohib- 
it or  regulate.     And  even  outside  the  limits  of  such 
regulation,  the  personal  sense  of  responsibility  t<»  tin- 
community  that   governs  the  actions  of     an      hoi 
merchant  will  prevent  his  attempting  to  satisfy  cer- 
tain wants  that  he  believes  would   better  remain   un- 
satisfied.    So,  too,  certain  hooks  are  without  the  pair 


32  LIBRARY  ESSAYS 

of  the  law— *they  would  be  confiscated  and  the  libra- 
rian would  be  punished  if  they  were  circulated.  Be- 
yond these  there  are  many  books  that  we  do  not  cir- 
culate simply  from  our  sense  of  general  responsibil- 
ity to  the  community. 

The  difference  between  our  work  and  that  of  the 
merchant  in  this  regard  lies  chiefly  in  the  more  ex- 
tended scope  left  for  our  own  judgment.  No  libra- 
rian thinks  of  circulating  illegal  literature;  his  only 
care  is  to  exclude  such  of  the  allowable  books  as  he 
believes  should  not,  for  any  reason,  be  placed  on  his 
shelves.  Here,  sometimes,  popularity  and  usefulness 
part  company.  The  librarian  may  yield  entirely  too 
much  to  the  wants — the  demands — of  the  community 
and  neglect  its  needs.  His  aim  should  be  to  bring 
the  wants  and  the  needs  into  harmony  so  far  as  pos- 
sible, to  make  his  people  want  what  will  do  them 
good.  This  might  be  dubbed  "the  whole  duty  of  a  li- 
brarian/' Few,  I  am  afraid,  attain  to  the  full  mea- 
sure of  it,  and  too  many  fail  even  to  realize  its  desir- 
ability. Of  course  if  you  can  bring  the  full  force  of 
a  reader's  conscience  to  bear  on  his  reading — if  you 
can  make  him  feel  that  it  is  his  duty  to  read  some 
good  book  that  strikes  him  as  stupid,  you  may  make 
him  stick  to  it  to  the  bitter  end,  but  such  perfunctory 
reading  does  little  good.  The  pleasure  one  gets  in 
reading  is  a  sign  of  benefits  received.  Even  the  smile 
of  the  boy  who  reads  George  Ade  is  a  sign  that  the 
book  is  furnishing  him  with  needed  recreation.  The 
pleasure  experienced,  we  will  say,  in  reading  Shake- 
speare is  of  course  of  a  far  higher  type ;  yet  I  venture 
to  say  that  if  that  pleasure  is  absent,  the  benefit  is 
absent  too.  Nine-tenths  of  the  distaste  felt  for  good 
standard  books  by  the  average  reader  is  the  result 
of  the  mistaken  efforts  of  some  one  to  force  him  to 
read  one  of  these  books  by  something  in  the  nature 


THE   SMALL   PUBLIC    LIBRARY  33 

of  an  appeal  to  duty.  There  is  no  moral  obligation 
to  read  Shakespeare  if  you  do  not  like  it.  and  if  a 
friend  persuades  .you  of  such  an  obligation  yon  are 
apt  to  end  by  rightly  concluding  that  he  is  wrong. 
But  with  this  conclusion  comes  an  unfortunate  dis- 
taste for  good  literature;  a  conviction  thai  standard 
works  are  all  dull,  and  that  the  only  kind  of  pleasure 
to  be  had  from  reading  is  the  most  superficial  kind. 
The  moral  for  librarians  is:  cultivate  in  your  readers 
a  taste  for  good  literature;  get  them  into  1 1 1  *  -  frame 
of  mind  and  the  grade  of  culture  where  they  like 
Shakespeare  and  then  turn  them  loose.  No  injunc- 
tions will  be  necessary;  they  will  not  cease  to  read 
until  they  have  devoured  the  utmost  Bentence. 

But  how  shall  this  taste  be  cultivated?  I  wish  I 
knew.  I  wish  I  could  give  you  a  formula  for  causing 
the  flower  of  literary  appreciation  to  unfold.  The 
rule  is  different  in  every  case.  First  and  foremost 
there  must  be  something  to  cultivate.  Yon  cannot 
go  out  into  the  desert  with  watering-pot  and  raise 
strawberries  or  asparagus.  But  you  can  take  a  poor 
little  spindling  plant  and  dig  about  it  and  fertilize 
it  until  it  waxes  into  a  robust  tree  whose  branches 
are  laden  with  big,  juicy  ideas.  If  you  are  skilful 
enough  to  find  out  what  intellectual  germs  there  are 
in  your  reader's  mind  you  can  cultivate  them  little 
by  little,  but  if  you  throw  Shakespeare  and  Milton 
at  the  heads  of  all  alike  they  will  be  likely  to  fall 
on  barren  ground.  The  golden  rule  for  making  your 
library  both  attractive  and  useful  (the  two  thin- 
hand  in  hand)  is  to  adapt  your  hooks  to  those  apti- 
tudes of  your  readers  that  need  and  will  hear  cultiva- 
tion. 

This  means  that  in  selecting  books  for  your  libra- 
ry you  must  not  disregard  the  demands  and  requests 
of  vour  readers.     It  also  means  that  yon   must   have 


34  LIBRARY  ESSAYS 

the  acuteness  to  detect  what  they  ought  to  request. 
It  may  be,  for  instance,  that  near  your  library  is  the 
home  of  some  great  industry  employing  large  num- 
bers of  intelligent  mechanics  who  would  gain  both 
enjoyment  and  benefit  by  reading  some  of  the  techni- 
cal literature  bearing  on  their  work.  Only  it  has 
never  occurred  to  them  to  think  that  this  literature, 
much  of  it  perhaps  expensive  or  inaccessible,  can  be 
obtained  at  the  public  library.  It  is  your  business 
to  get  it,  if  you  can,  and  to  let  them  know  that  you 
have  it  and  that  they  are  welcome  to  read  it. 

Remember,  too,  that  he  gives  twice     who     gives 
quickly.     Much   of  the  ephemeral  literature  of  the 
day,  which  is  purchased  for  recreative  purposes,  is 
rightly  and  properly  read  for  curiosity.     People  like 
to  read  the  latest  book  and  talk  to  each  other  about 
it.     We  are  all  embryo  critics.     This  desire  to  read 
the  last  thing  out,  just  because  it  is  the  last,  has  had 
anathemas  piled  on  it  until  it  ought  to  be  crushed, 
but  it  is  still  lively.    I  confess  I  have  it  myself  and  I 
cannot  blame  my  neighbor  if  he  has  it  too.     Unless 
we  are  wholly  to  reject  the  recreative  use  of  the  libra- 
ry or  to  accept  it  with  a  mental  reservation  that  the 
public  shall  enjoy  itself  according   to    a    prescribed 
formula  or  not  at  all— we  shall  have  to  buy  some  of 
these  books.     I  am  afraid  that  otherwise  some  future 
historian  of  literature  may  say  of  us  in  parody  of 
Macaulay's  celebrated  epigram  on  the  Puritans  and 
bearbaiting,  that  the  twentieth-century  librarian  con- 
demned the  twentieth-century  novel,  not  because  it 
did  harm  to  the  library,  but  because  it  gave  pleasure 
to  the  reader.    Now,  if  we  are  going  to  buy  this  ephe- 
meral literature,  we  must  get  it  quickly  or  not  at  all. 
The  latest  novel  must  go  on  your  shelves  hot  from 
the  presses,  or  stay  off.    And  this  is  true  of    much 
other  literature  that  is  not  ephemeral  but  that  de- 


THE   SMALL  PUBLIC    LIBRARY 

pends  for  its  effect  od  its  timeliness.  It.  will  certainly 
lose  readers  if  it  is  not  on  your    shelves     prom] 
and  if  it  deserves  readers,  as  much  of  it  does,  the  net 
result  is  a  loss  to  the  community. 

So  we  come  next  t<>  the  question  of*  readers.  Bow 
shall  we  get  them?  What  kind  do  we  want,  and  how- 
shall  we  reach  that  kind?  In  commercial  systems 
of  distribution  the  merchant  gets  qustomers  in  two 
ways:  by  giving  good  quality  ami  good  measure  and 
by  advertising.  Some  kind  of  advertising  is  general- 
ly essential.  Even  if  your  community  is  a  very  small 
one  it  is  right  that  yon  should  occasionally  remind 
it  of  your  existence  and  of  what  yon  have  t<>  offer. 
Legitimate  advertising  is  simply  informing  people 
where  they  can  obtain  something  that  they  are  likely 
to  want.  The  address  of  your  library  should  be  in 
your  railway  station;  in  the  schools;  in  the  drug 
store.  Your  latest  accessions  should  be  announced  in 
the  local  papers  and  bulletined  in  the  same  pla 
When  you  have  an  item  about  your  library  that 
would  interest  the  reader  send  it  yourself  to  the  pa- 
per. There  is  nothing  undignified  about  this.  Do 
not  forget  that  you  are  in  charge  of  certain  articles 
that  the  public  needs  and  desires  and  that  it  is  your 
business  to  let  the  public  know  it.  The  new-comer 
to  your  town  cannot  know  intuitively  that  your  li- 
brary is  at  such  and  such  an  address:  the  old  resi- 
dent who  likes  to  read  Howells  cannot  ascertain  by 
telepathy  that  you  have  just  received  the  hist  volume 
by  his  favorite  author.  You  may  even  send  a  ape 
cial  card  of  information  to  a  reader  who  yon  know 
will  be  glad  to  get  it. 

One  would  think  that  if  there  was  anything  dis- 
tinctive about  our  systems  of  distribution,  commer- 
cial or  otherwise,  it  was  the  great  degree  to  which 
we  advertise  and  the  money  that  we  spend  in  >•>  do 


36  LIBRARY  ESSAYS 

ing.  But  with  it  all,  this  feature  in  its  misdirected 
energy  and  lack  of  method  is  the  weak  point  of  the 
whole  system.  Much  of  the  money  spent  in  adver- 
tising is  devoted  to  attempts  to  get  people  to  buy 
what  they  do  not  want.  Any  one  knows  that  when 
he  desires  a  very  special  or  definite  thing  it  is  often 
impossible  to  find  it,  though  it  may  be  next  door.  In 
our  library  work,  so  far  as  readers  are  concerned,  our 
weak  points  are  two :  first,  failure  to  make  known 
our  presence  and  our  work  to  all  who  might  use  the 
library;  second,  failure  to  hold  our  readers.  These 
things  are  both  serious.  We  ourselves  see  so  much 
of  libraries  that  we  find  it  difficult  to  understand 
how  large  a  proportion  of  any  community  is  ignor- 
ant of  them  and  their  work.  In  large  cities,  of 
course,  this  is  more  likely  to  be  the  case  than  in 
small  towns.  Yet  if  you  will  compare  the  number 
of  names  on  your  registration  list  with  the  popula- 
tion you  serve,  even  making  allowance  for  the  fact 
that  each  book  withdrawn  may  be  read  by  several 
persons,  and  deducting  young  children  who  cannot 
read,  you  will  be  surprised  at  the  discrepancy.  There 
are  many  people  who  do  not  know  of  your  library's 
existence  or  who  do  not  realize  what  it  means.  Your 
first  duty  is  to  find  some  way  of  giving  them  the  in- 
formation and  of  seeing  that  they  shall  not  forget  it. 
Regarding  the  second  failure,  you  may  get  some 
idea  of  that  if  you  will  compare  the  growth  of  your 
registration  list  with  that  of  your  circulation.  The 
circulation  never  grows  as  fast  as  the  membership. 
It  may  even  be  stationary  or  decreasing  while  new 
users  are  coming  in  daily.  The  fact  is,  of  course, 
that  former  users  are  all  the  time  dropping  off.  Why 
do  they  drop  off?  It  is  your  business  to  find  out  and 
to  keep  them  if  you  can.  The  librarian  in  a  small 
community  has  a  great  advantage  in  this  respect,  for 


THE   SMALL    PUBLIC    LIBRARY 

she  can  know  her  constituency  personally  and  keep 
track  of  them  individually. 

But  the  personal  relations  of  the  librarian     and 
her  assistants  with  the  public  belong  as  much  in  the 
third  section  of  our  subject  as  in  the  second.     The 
importance  of  them  cannot  be  exaggerated.     I     am 
not  sure  that  I  should  not    prefer    a     sunny-faced, 
pleasant-voiced,  intelligent,   good-tempered   assistant 
in  a  tumble-down  building-  with  a  lot  of  second-hand, 
badly  arranged  books,  rather  than  tin-     latest     Car- 
negie library  stocked  with  literary  treasures  it'  these 
had  to  be  dispensed  by  a  haughty  young   lady   with 
monosyllabic  answers  and  a  fatigued  expression.     1 
know  of  no  more  exasperating  duty  than  that  of  con- 
tinually meeting  a  library  public— and  I  know  of  no 
pleasanter   one.      For   the   public  is   just    yon     and 
me  and  some  other    people,    and    like    you    and    me 
it  is  various  in  its   moods.     The   mood   of   the   pub- 
lic in  a  library  is  often  a   reflection   of  that   of   the 
librarian.    The  golden  rule  here  is  direct  personal  con- 
tact; and  don't  forget  the  last  syllable — tact.     Don't 
force  your  services  or  your  advice  on   people     that 
neither  wish  nor  require  them,  but  don't  forget  that 
you  may     have     pleasant,     intellectual     intercourse 
without   offering   either   aid   or   advice.      When      an 
aged  man  who    knows  more    of  literature    than    yon 
dreamed  of  in  your  wildest  visions  wants  "The  Dolly 
dialogues,"  don't  try  to  get  him  to  take  "Matins  the 
Epicurean"  instead.     But  if  yon  get  into  the  habit 
of  talking  with  him  it  may  make  the  library     seem 
pleasant  and  homelike  to  him,  and,   besides,  he  may 
tell  you  something  that  you  do  not  know— that  is  a 
not  remote  and  certainly  fascinating  possibility. 

I  need  not  say  that  no  library  can  be  useful  or 
attractive  unless  it  is  properly  arranged  and  cata- 
loged, and  unless  it  has  a  simple  and  effective  charg 


41591 8 


38  LIBRARY  ESSAYS 

ing  system ;  and  unless  the  public  is  admitted  directly 
to  the  shelves  and  allowed  to  handle  and  select  the 
books.  But  I  do  need  to  say — because  some  of  us  are 
apt  to  forget  it — that  these  things  are  not  ends  in 
themselves,  but  means  to  an  end,  namely,  the  bring- 
ing together  of  the  man  and  the  book,  the  distribu- 
tion of  ideas.  Do  not  assume  that  for  some  occult 
reason  you  must  classify  and  catalog  your  library 
precisely  like  some  large  public  library  with  which 
you  are  familiar.  Do  not  assume,  if  you  are  a  trained 
cataloger,  that  there  is  any  virtue,  for  instance,  in 
subject  cards.  One  subject  heading  that  brings  the 
book  in  touch  with  your  public  outweighs  a  dozen 
that  do  not  affect  it.  To  bring  together  man  and 
book  break  all  rules  and  strike  out  in  all  kinds  of 
new  directions.  Your  particular  locality  and  your 
particular  public  may  have  special  requirements  that 
are  present  nowhere  else.  Rules  were  made  for  the 
aid  and  comfort  of  the  public,  not  for  their  confusion 
and  hindrance.  Methods  are  the  librarian's  tools, 
not  his  handcuffs  and  shackles.  To  do  anything  well 
we  must  do  it  with  method  and  system ;  but  these, 
like  a  growing  boy's  clothes,  need  frequent  renewal. 
If  your  library  has  stopped  growing  and  has  reached 
senility,  then  the  same  suit  will  fit  it  year  after  year, 
but  premature  old  age  is  not  a  good  goal  to  strive  for. 


LAY  CONTROL  IN  LIBRARIES  AND 
ELSEWHERE* 

The  system  by  which  the  control  of  a  concern  is 
vested  in  a  person  or  a  body  having  no  expert  techni- 
cal knowledge  of  its  workings  lias  become  bo  common 
that  it  may  be  regarded  as  characteristic  of  modern 

civilization.  If  this  seems  to  any  one  an  extreme 
statement,  a  little  reflection  will  convince  him  to  the 
contrary.  To  cite  only  a  few  examples,  the  boards 
of  directors  of  commercial  or  financial  institutions 
like  our  manufacturing  corporations,  our  railways 
and  our  banks,  of  charitable  foundations  like  our 
hospitals  and  our  asylums,  of  educational  establish- 
ments like  our  schools  and  colleges,  arc  dow  qo1  ex- 
pected to  understand  the  detail  of  the  institutions 
under  their  charge.  Their  first  duty  is  to  put  at  the 
head  of  their  work  an  expert  with  a  staff  of  compe- 
tent assistants  to  see  to  that  pari  of  it.  Even  in  most 
of  our  churches  the  minister  or  pastor — the  expert 
head — is  employed  and  practically  controlled  by  a 
lay  body  of  some  kind — a  vestry,  ;i  session  or  the  like. 
Government  itself  is  similarly  conducted.  Neither 
the  legislative  nor  the  executive  branch  is  expected 
to  be  made  up  of  experts  who  understand  the  techni- 
cal detail  of  departmental  work;  all  this  is  h-ft  to 
subordinates.  Even  the  heads  of  departments  often 
know  nothing  at  all  of  the  particular  work  over 
which  they  have  been  set  until  they  have  held  their 
position  for  some  time. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that   this  system  of 

•Read    before    the    Trustees'    Section    of    th.     An 
Association  at   the   Niagara  Conference, 


40  LIBRARY  ESSAYS 

lay  control  is  of  interest  to  us  here  and  now,  because 
it  obtains  in  most  libraries,  where  the  governing  body 
is  a  board  of  trustees  or  directors  who  are  generally 
not  experts,  but  who  employ  a  librarian  to  superin- 
tend their  work. 

To  multiply  examples  would  be  superflous.  Lay 
control,  as  above  illustrated,  is  not  universal,  but  I 
postpone  for  the  present  a  consideration  of  its  antith- 
eses and  its  exceptions.  It  looks  illogical,  and 
when  the  ordinary  citizen's  attention  is  brought  to 
the  matter  in  any  way  he  generally  so  considers  it. 
In  certain  cases  it  is  even  a  familiar  object  of  satire. 
The  general  public  is  apt,  I  think,  to  regard  lay  con- 
trol as  improper  or  absurd. 

With  the  expert  and  his  staff,  who  are  concerned 
directly  with  the  management  of  the  institution  in 
question,  the  feeling  is  a  little  different.  It  is  more 
like  that  of  President  Cleveland  when  he  "had  Con- 
gress on  his  hands" — a  sort  of  anxious  tolerance. 
They  bear  with  the  board  that  employs  them  because 
it  has  the  power  of  the  purse,  but  they  are  glad  when 
it  adjourns  without  interfering  unduly  with  them. 

Are  either  of  these  points  of  view  justified? 
Should  lay  boards  of  directors  be  abolished?  Or,  if 
retained,  should  those  without  expert  knowledge  be 
barred? 

Now  at  first  sight  it  certainly  seems  as  if  the  ulti- 
mate control  of  every  business  or  operation  should 
be  in  the  hands  of  those  who  thoroughly  understand 
it,  and  this  would  certainly  bar  out  lay  control.  I 
believe  that  this  view  is  superficial  and  will  not  bear 
close  analysis. 

The  idea  that  those  who  control  an  institution 
should  be  familiar  with  its  details  appears  to  orig- 
inate in  an  analogy  with  a  man's  control  of  his  own 
private  affairs,  when  his  occupation     and     income 


LAY  CONTROL  IN  LIBRARI]  n 

make  it  necessary  that  he  should  attend  to  all  those 
affairs  personally.  The  citizen  who  digs  and  plants 
his  own  garden  must  understand  some  of  the  details 
of  gardening.  The  man  who  does  his  own  "odd  jobs" 
about  the  house  must  be  able  to  drive  a  nail  and 
handle  a  paint  brush.  This  necessity  vanishes,  how- 
ever,  as  the  man's  interests  become  more  vari<M]  and 
his  financial  ability  to  care  for  them  becomes  greater. 
At  a  certain  point  personal  attention  to  detail  be- 
comes not  only  unnecessary  but  impossible.  To  ex- 
pect the  master  of  a  great  estate  to  understand  the 
details  of  his  garden,  his  stable,  his  kennels,  as  well 
as  the  experts  to  whom  he  entrusts  them,  is  absurd. 
He  may,  of  course,  as  a  matter  of  amusement,  busy 
himself  in  some  one  department,  but  if  he  tries  t.. 
superintend  everything  personally*,  still  more  to  un- 
derstand and  regulate  matters  of  detail,  lie  is  wast- 
ing his  time. 

We  must  seek  our  analogy,  then,  both  for  lay  con- 
trol and  for  the  attitude  of  the  ordinary  citizen 
toward  it  in  that  citizen's  management  of  his  private 
affairs.  He  knows  his  own  business — or  thinks  he 
does— and  he  finds  it  hard  to  realize  that  tie-  details 
of  that  business  could  ever  grow  beyond  his  persona] 
control. 

But,  after  all,  this  progress  is  one  towards  the 
normal.  Attention  to  details  in  the  ease  of  the  pour 
man  is  forced  upon  him.  Except  in  rare  cases,  he 
does  not  really  care  to  shovel  his  own  snon  ;  he 
would  prefer  to  hire  a  man  to  do  it,  and  as  soon  as  he 
can  he  does  do  so.  So  long  as  his  sidewalk  is  proper- 
ly cleared  he  is  willing  to  leave  the  details  to  the  man 
who  clears  it.  He  does  not  care  whether  that  man 
begins  at  the  north  or  the  south  end,  or  whether  his 
shovelfuls  are  small  or  la  rue. 

Here,  if  we  examine,  we  shall   find     a     common 


42  LIBRAEY  ESSAYS 

characteristic  of  those  kinds  of  work  where  laymen 
are  in  control — the  persons  for  whom  the  work  is 
done  care  very  much  about  results;  they  are  careless 
of  methods  so  long  as  those  results  are  attained.  And 
in  a  very  large  number  of  cases  the  persons  for  whom 
the  work  is  done  will  be  found  to  be  the  public,  or 
so  large  a  section  of  it  that  it  is  practically  a  group 
of  laymen  so  far  as  the  particular  work  in  question 
may  be  concerned. 

A  lay  board  of  directors  or  a  lay  departmental 
head,  then,  is  simply  and  properly  a  representative 
of  a  greater  lay  body  that  is  particularly  anxious  for 
results  and  not  particularly  anxious  about  methods. 
Lay  control  is  thus  not  illogical,  but  is  the  outcome 
of  a  regular  and  very  proper  development.  But,  as 
has  been  said,  it  is  not  the  only  method  of  controlling 
a  great  institution.  An  institution  may  be  managed 
by  a  graded  body  of  experts.  So  were  the  old  guilds 
of  craftsmen  managed.  So  are  many  ecclesiastical 
bodies,  notably  the  Roman  Catholic  Church.  We 
may  call  this  method  of  control  hierarchical.  It  has 
some  advantages  over  lay  control  and  some  disadvan- 
tages. We  may  imagine  such  a  system  applied  to 
libraries.  All  the  libraries  in  a  state,  we  will  say, 
would  then  be  managed  by  the  state  librarian,  and 
all  these  officers  would  be  subject  to  the  orders  of 
the  librarian  of  the  national  library,  who  would  be 
supreme  and  accountable  to  no  one.  Without  going 
into  detailed  discussion  of  this  extremely  supposi- 
titious case,  we  may  say  that  the  objection  to  it  would 
be  that  the  persons  who  are  especially  interested  in 
the  results  of  the  work  done  are  not  represented  in 
the  controlling  hierarchy.  Where  the  persons  inter- 
ested are  all  experts,  as  in  a  guild  of  craftsmen,  there 
can  perhaps  be  no  objection  to  control  by  experts; 
though  even  in  this  case  we  are  leaving  out  of  consid- 


LAY  CONTROL  IX   LIBRARI]   3  }.: 

eration  the  persons,  generally  laymen,  for  whom  the 

craftsmen  do  their  work. 

In  fact,  any  trouble  that  may  arise  from  the  lay 
control  of  a  body  of  expert  workers  lies  just  here- 
in the  failure  either  of  the  controlling  authority  or 

the  trained  subordinates  to  recognize  and  keep  with- 
in their  limitations.  It  should  be  the  function  of  the 
supreme  lay  authority  to  decide  what  results  it 
wants  and  then  to  see  that  it  gets  them— to  call  at- 
tention to  any  deviation  from  them  and  to  replace 
those  who  cannot  achieve  them  by  others  who  can.  Ir 
should  be  the  part  of  the  expert  stair  of  subordinates 
to  discover  by  what  methods  these  results  can  best  be 
reached  and  then  to  follow  out  these  methods. 

When  the  lay  head  attempts  to  direct  the  details 
of  method,  or  when  the  trained  subordinate  thinks 
it  his  duty  to  influence  the  policy  of  the  institution, 
then  there  is  apt  to  be  trouble. 

Such  results  are  apt  to  follow,  on  the  one  hand, 
the  inclusion  in  a  board  of  trustees  of  a  man  with  a 
passion  for  detail  and  a  great  personal  interest  in 
the  work  under  him,  but  without  a  keen  realization 
of  the  necessity  for  strict  organization  and  disci- 
pline in  his  expert  staff;  or,  on  the  other  hand,  from 
the  presence  in  that  staff  of  a  masterful  man  who 
cannot  rest  until  he  is  in  virtual  control  of  whatever 
he  concerns  himself  about. 

I  say  trouble  is  apt  to  follow  in  such  cases.  It 
does  not  always  follow,  for  the  organization  may 
adapt  itself  to  circumstances.  The  interested  trus- 
tee may  play  with  ease  his  two  roles,  fitting  into  his 
board  as  a  lay  member  and  becoming  practically  al- 
so a  part  of  the  expert  staff.  The  masterful  subor- 
dinate may  dominate  his  board  so  as  to  become  its 
dictator,  and  thus  do  away  for  a  time  with  his  lay 
control.    We  have  all  seen  both  these  things  happen, 


44  LIBRARY  ESSAYS 

not  only  in  libraries,  but  in  banks,  in  hospitals,  in 
charitable  institutions.  In  some  cases  it  has  been 
well  that  they  have  happened.  But  although  an  oc- 
casional stick  is  flexible  enough  to  be  tied  into  a  knot, 
it  would  be  hazardous  to  try  the  experiment  with  all 
sticks.     Some  may  bend  but  more  will  break. 

Is  it  not  better  to  accept  frankly  the  division  of 
labor  that  seems  to  have  been  pointed  out  by  the  de- 
velopment of  our  institutions  for  the  guidance  '  of 
their  management? 

Boards  of  trustees  in  this  case  would  find  it  nec- 
essary to  decide  first  on  the  desirable  results  to  be 
reached  in  their  work.  This  is  a  phase  of  library 
discussion  that  has  been  somewhat  neglected.  What 
is  the  public  library  trying  to  get  at?  Not  stated  in 
vague  terms,  but  in  concrete  form,  so  that  the  trus- 
tees can  call  the  librarian  to  account  if  he  fails  to 
accomplish  it?  It  is  only  fair  to  the  librarian  that 
he  should  be  informed  at  the  outset  precisely  what 
he  is  expected  to  do,  and  then  it  is  only  fair  that  he 
should  be  left  to  do  it  in  his  own  way. 

This  is  an  unoccupied  field,  and  it  would  be  an 
eminently  proper  one  for  the  Trustees'  Section  of 
the  American  Library  Association.  We  librarians 
should  be  very  glad  to  know  just  what  you  expect  us 
to  accomplish,  for  on  that  depends  our  manner  of 
setting  to  work.  Do  3rou  wish  us  to  aim  at  decreas- 
ing the  percentage  of  illiteracy  in  the  community? 
or  the  arrests  for  drunkenness?  Are  we  to  strive  for 
an  increased  circulation?  And  will  an  absolute  in- 
crease be  satisfactory,  or  must  it  be  an  increase  pro- 
portionate to  population?  Is  it  definitely  demanded 
of  us  to  decrease  our  fiction  percentage?  Shall  we, 
in  any  given  case,  devote  our  attention  chiefly  to  the 
home  use  or  the  reference  use  of  the  library?  Shall 
we  favor  the  student  or  the  ordinarv  citizen?    These 


LAY  CONTROL   IN    LIBRARI]  - 

questions,  of  course,  cannot  receive  a  general  answer- 
they  must  be  decided  differently  in  different  cases] 
but  at  least  we  may  agree  on  the  type  of  qnestioE  thai 
it  is  admissible  to  answer  at  all  and  on  the  degree  of 
detail  to  which  it  is  permissible  to  go  in  statin"  a  re- 
quirement 

For  instance,  is  it  admissible  for  a  board  to  saj 
to  its  librarian,  "The  results  that  we  require  you  to 
show  include  the  following:  A  well-ordered  collec- 
tion of  books  classified  according  to  the  Dewey  sys- 
tem, bound  in  half  duck  and  distributed  with  the 
aid  of  the  Browne  charging  system?*'  I  think  it  will 
be  granted  that  this  would  be  an  attempt  to  control 
the  details  of  method  in  the  guise  of  a  statement  of 
desired  results.  But  where  shall  we  draw  the  line? 
How  specific  may  be  the  things  that  a  board  may  prop- 
erly require  of  its  expert  staff?  That  is  the  ques 
tion  whose  solution  by  this  Section  won  1.1  be  an 
inestimable  benefit  to  all  libraries  and  librarians.  At 
present  there  is  wide  difference  of  opinion  and  of 
practice  on  this  point,  Many  people  would  not  agree 
at  all  with  the  limitations  that  have  just  been  laid 
down;  even  those  who  do  agree  would  differ  widely 
over  their  interpretation. 

There  is  hardly  time  to  anticipate  and  meet  crit 
icism.  I  shall  be  reminded,  1  suppose,  that  the  funds 
for  carrying  on  the  library's  work  are  in  the  hands 
of  the  trustees,  and  that  one  of  the  main  objects  <>f 
their  existence  is  to  see  that  the  money  is  honestly 
spent,  not  stolen  or  wasted.  Now  can  they  do  this 
without  close  oversight  of  methods?  To  this  I  would 
reply  that  this  important  function  of  the  board  is 
distinctly  the  requirement  of  a  result,  that  result 
being  the  honest  administration  of  the  library  The 
method  by  which  it  may  be  administered  most  lion- 


46  LIBRARY  ESSAYS 

estly  is  best  left  to  the  expert  head.  Naturally,  if 
evidence  of  peculation  or  waste  conies  before  the 
board  the  librarian  will  be  held  to  account  as  having 
failed  to  achieve  the  required  result  of  honest  admin- 
istration. In  this  and  in  other  respects  the  necessi- 
ty that  the  board  should  know  whether  or  not  the 
desired  results  are  being  attained  means  that  the 
work  of  the  executive  officer  should  be  followed 
with  attention.  It  must  be  evident,  however,  that 
this  does  not  involve  control  and  dictation  of  meth- 
ods. 

It  must  also  be  remembered  that  what  has  been 
said  refers  only  to  the  administrative  control  of  the 
institution.  The  duties  of  trustees  as  custodians  of 
of  an  endowment  fund,  if  such  there  be,  or  in  solic- 
iting and  receiving  contributions  as  well  as  other  fi- 
nancial considerations,  are  separate  from  this  and 
have  not  been  considered. 

Again,  I  shall  be  told  that  the  head  of  the  execu- 
tive staff  is  not  only  a  subordinate  but  also  an  ex- 
pert adviser  of  his  board.  This  is  true;  and  as  a  con- 
sulting expert  it  is  his  duty  to  give  advice  outside  of 
his  own  administrative  field  if  he  is  asked  for  it.  It 
may  even  be  his  duty  to  give  it  unasked  occasionally, 
but  this  comes  very  near  to  the  interference  that  I 
have  deprecated.  He  who  would  tread  this  border- 
land must  tread  softly.  On  the  other  hand,  the  ex- 
pert may  and  should  ask  the  advice  of  members  of 
his  board  as  individuals  or  of  the  board  as  a  whole 
when  he  needs  it  and  when  he  feels  that  it  would 
give  him  confidence  or  strengthen  his  hand.  In  this 
whole  matter  there  is  a  clear  distinction  between  the 
advisory  and  executive  function  on  one  hand  and  on 
the  other. 

In  short,  the  view  taken  in  this  paper  may  be 
briefly  summed  up  as  follows:  Lay  control  in  libra- 


LAY  CONTROL   IX  LIBRABI] 

ries  and  elsewhere  is  a  logical  and  proper  develop- 
ment.  It  would  not,  on  the  whole,  be  well  for  one 
who  should  wish  to  endow  a  library  to  make  an  ex- 
pert librarian  sok>  trust,.,'  for  life  with  power  to 
lect  his  successor.  That  would  be  a  One  thing  for  the 
librarian,  but  it  would  be  neither  desirable  nor  prop- 
er. It  is  well  that  the  trustees  should  be  responsible 
representatives  of  the  lay  public,  for  whose  benefit 
the  library  is  to  be  conducted.  But  as  the  public  is 
interested  chiefly  in  results,  the  trustees  should  con- 
fine themselves  largely  to  the  indication  and  require- 
ment of  these  results,  leaving  methods  in  the  hand  of 
their  expert  staff  of  subordinates.  And  it  is  eminent- 
ly desirable  that  librarians  should  hear  from  a  rep- 
resentative body  of  trustees  some  expression  of  opin- 
ion regarding  the  extent  of  this  limitation. 


THE  WHOLE  DUTY  OF  A  LIBRARY  TRUSTEE: 
FROM   A   LIBRARIAN'S  STANDPOO 

At  a  former  meeting  of  this  section  the  present 
writer  had  the  honor  of  reading  a  paper  in  which  he 
made  an  attempt  to  show  that  the  trustee  <>I  the  pub- 
lic library  is  the  representative  of  the  public  and.  as 
such,  interested  especially  in  results  as  distinguished 
from  methods,  which  are  the  business  of  the  librarian 
as  an  expert  administrator.  In  making  this  distinc- 
tion I  urged  trustees  to  give  particuar  attention  to 
the  formulation  of  such  results  as  they  should  con- 
sider desirable,  that  librarians  on  their  part  might 
confine  themselves  more  to  the  consideration  of  ap- 
propriate methods  for  the  attainment  of  these  results. 
So  far  as  I  know,  however,  this  work  remains  to  be 
accomplished,  and  it  is  because  I  still  think  it  desir- 
able that  I  welcome  this  opportunity  of  restating  the 
situation  and  making  some  attempt  to  Illustrate  it 
and  to  indicate  what  may  and  should  be  done  in  the 
premises.  According  to  this  view  it  is  not  only  the 
duty  of  a  board  of  trustees  to  consider  what  should 
be  the  results  aimed  at  by  its  Library,  to  formulate 
its  conclusions,  to  communicate  them  to  the  librarian 
and  then  to  hold  him  responsible  for  their  attain- 
ment, but  everything  that  the  board  may  properly 
do  may  be  brought  under  this  head:  and  to  state  it 
broadly  is  therefore  t<>  s.-t  forth  comprehensively  the 
"whole  duty  of  a  trustee,"  which  may  serve  as  the 
justification  of  my  somewhat  ambitious  title. 

The  layman's  influence,  control  exercised  by  and 

*  An  address  before  the  Trustees'  Section  of  the   American    I-C 
Association,    N"arragansett   Conferei 


50  LIBRARY     ESSAYS 

through  the  viewpoint  of  the  general  public,  is  a 
most  excellent  thing,  however  much  the  expert  may 
chafe  under  it.  This  is  apparent  in  every  art  and 
craft.  The  expert,  the  man  who  has  made  a  study  of 
technique,  of  the  way  to  do  it,  comes  more  and  more 
to  think  of  the  method  rather  than  the  result — to 
elaborate  detail  and  manner  and  to  take  keen  joy 
in  their  recognition  and  comparison.  So  it  is  with 
the  worker  in  art  or  in  literature,  and  thus  we  have 
what  are  called  painter's  pictures  and  musician's 
music  and  poet's  poems — works  that  interest  and  de- 
light those  whose  business  it  is  to  produce  them,  but 
which  leave  the  general  reader  or  hearer  cold.  It  is 
evident  that  these,  no  matter  how  valuable  or  inter- 
esting they  may  be  from  one  standpoint,  are  not  the 
highest  examples  of  their  class.  Better  are  the 
crude  attempts  of  native  genius  which  kindle  enthus- 
iasm and  arouse  the  best  impulses  while  breaking 
every  canon  of  art.  Best  of  all,  of  course,  are  the 
works  where  the  technique  and  the  result  are  both 
admirable  and  where  the  technical  resources  of  the 
workers  are  brought  to  bear  consciously,  directly  and 
successfully  upon  the  attainment  of  the  result.  And 
to  produce  such  works  two  forces  must  generally  co- 
operate— the  trained  skill  and  enthusiasm  of  the  art- 
ist and  the  requirement  of  the  general  public  that  his 
work  must  appeal  to  them,  interest  them,  take  them  a 
message.  Now  this  is  of  interest  to  us  here  and  now, 
because,  just  as  we  occasionally  have  "composer's 
music"  and  "architect's  buildings,"  so,  it  is  to  be 
feared,  we  may  have  librarian's  libraries — institu- 
tions that  are  carried  on  with  the  highest  degree  of 
technical  skill  and  w7ith  enthusiasm  and  interest  and 
yet  fail  of  adequate  achievement  because  the  librarian 
makes  the  mistake  of  regarding  the  technique  as  an 
end  instead  of  as  a  means — of  thinking  that  if  his 


DUTY  OF  A    LIBRARY  TRUSTEE  51 

methods  be  precise,  systematic  and  correct,  good  re- 
sults must  needs  follow,  instead  of  aiming  directly  at 
his  results  and  adapting  his  methods  i<»  their  attain- 
ment. 

It  is  here  that  the  trustee,  as  the  official  repre- 
sentative of  the  general  public,  may  applj  a  correc- 
tive influence.  In  the  ease  of  the  artist  or  the  writer 
this  influence  is  brought  to  bear  generally  in  ;i  finan- 
cial way — by  a  wealthy  patron  who  will  order  a  pic- 
ture or  statue  provided  it  accords  with  his  own  ideas 
— by  hostile  criticism,  public  or  private,  that  drives 
away  purchasers.  In  a  public  library,  public  opinion 
rarely  makes  itself  felt  in  this  way;  indeed,  it  could 
do  so  only  in  cases  where  disregard  <»('  the  public 
amounted  to  mismanagement  and  led  to  the  reduction 
of  appropriations  or  the  discharge  of  the  librarian. 
Public  criticism,  as  in  the  press,  might  also  affect  a 
librarian's  course;  it  undoubtedly  often  th^-s.  hut  it 
need  not;  and  he  may  safely  disregard  it  as  a  gener- 
al thing.  When,  however,  his  hoard  of  trustees  calls 
him  to  account,  he  must  listen,  and  when  it  tells  him 
what  he  is  expected  to  do,  it  is  then  his  business  to 
devise  the  best  way  to  do  it. 

A  rough  classification  and  analysis  of  the  results 
that  a  librarian  may  he  expected  to  accomplish  ma\ 
not  he  out  of  place  here.  We  may  treat  them  under 
four  heads:  financial,  educational,  recreational  and 
social. 

Financial  results. — A  library  must  show  ;i  good 
material  return  for  money  expended.  By  this  is 
meant  that  its  hooks  and  supplies  must  lie  purchased 
at  fair  rates,  its  salaries  reasonably  proportioned  t<> 
quantity  ami  quality  of  services  rendered,  its  propel 
ty  economically  administered.  A  board  <»f  trustees  is 
derelict  in  its  duty  if  it  does  not  require  all  this,  ami 
also  hold  its  librarian    rigidly    to   such    requirement 


52  LIBRARY     ESSAYS 

This  means  that  it  must,  along    the    broadest    lines, 
know  the  ratio  of  expenditure  to  return  in  these  var- 
ious departments ;  it  does  not  mean  that  the  librarian 
should  be  hampered  by  the  prescription  of  details. 
It  means,  for  example,  that  the  expert  administrator 
should  be  called  to  account  if  his  bills  for  lighting  and 
heating  are  excessive,  and  that  he  should  be  asked 
to  show  cause  why  they  should  not  be  kept  within 
bounds ;  it  does  not  mean  that  he  should  be  required 
to  use  lights  of  a  certain  caudle-power  or  turn  off  the 
light  in  a  particular  room  at  a  given  hour.    In  most  li- 
braries, the  making  of  annual  appropriations  under 
designated  heads  and  the  requirement  that  cause  shall 
be  shown  for  a  transfer  from  one  of  these  categories 
to  another,  are  sufficient  measures  of  financial  con- 
trol. 

Among  the  financial  results  that  have  already  at- 
tracted the  attention  of  the  public  and  hence  engaged 
the  interest  of  boards  of  trustees  is  the  attainment  of 
a  proper  ratio  of  expenditure  for  books  to  the  expense 
of  administration.  This  ratio  is  generally  regarded 
by  the  lay  critic  as  abnormally  small,  but  trustees 
have  generally  acquiesced  in  the  librarian's  explana- 
tion of  the  causes  that  seem  to  him  to  make  it  neces- 
sarily so.  It  is  undoubtedly  the  trustee's  duty  to 
call  his  expert  administrator's  attention  to  this  and 
all  other  seeming  discrepancies  in  expenditure,  and  to 
make  sure  that  they  are  not  carrying  the  library  too 
far  toward  technical  perfection  at  the  expense  of  prac- 
tical efficiency. 

Educational  results. — It  is  only  right  to  require 
that  a  library  should  be  able  to  show  that  it  is  in- 
creasing the  educational  content  of  the  community, 
or  raising  its  educational  standard,  or  at  least  that 
it  is  exerting  itself  to  do  so,  both  directly  and  by  co- 
operation  with   other  agencies,  especially  with    the 


DUTY  OF  A  LIBRARY  TRUSTEE 


53 


public  schools.    A  board  of  trustees  is  certainly  justi- 
fied in  ascertaining  by  any  means  in  its  power  wheth- 
er this  is  being  done,  and  if  not,  in  asking  ;m  explana- 
tion of  its  librarian.    Does  everyone  in  the  commun- 
ity know  where  the  library  is?     Is   everyone    who 
would  be  benefited  by  it  making  use  of  it?     ]>  it  a 
help  to  the  schools,  and  do  the  teachers  recognize  this 
fact?    Does  the  community  in  general  regard  it  as  a 
place  where  material  for  the  acquisition   of  knowl- 
edge is  stored  and  discriminatingly  given  out?    These 
are  questions  that  can  be  settled  not  so  much  by  the 
examination  of  statistics  as  by  ascertaining  the  gen- 
eral feeling  of  the  community,     it  is  much  easier  for 
a  trustee  to  find  this  out  than  it  is  for  a   librarian; 
and  trustees,  both  individually  and  as  a  body,  should 
continually  bear  in  mind  the  value  to  them  of  infor- 
mation along  this  line.     Librarians  an-  apt   to  talk  a 
good  deal  about  the  educational   function   of  the  li- 
brary as  an  adjunct  and  supplement  to  the  school. 
It  is  to  their  credit  that  they  have  made  it  an  educa- 
tional force  not  under  pressure  but  voluntarily,  :is  a 
recognition  of  the  necessities  of  the  situation,      lint 
where  such  necessities  have  not  yet   been   recognized 
or  where  their  full  import   has  been  slow  of  realiza- 
tion, the  educational   side  of  library   work   remains 
undeveloped.     Let   the   board   of  trustees   notify    its 
executive  officer  that  it   expects  him   to  look  to  this 
feature  of  his  work  as  thoroughly  as  to  the  condition 
of  his  building  or  the  economical  expenditure  of  his 
lighting  appropriation,  and  all  such  institutions  will 
experience  a  change  of  heart. 

Recreational  results.  Nothing  is  more  important 
to  the  physical  and  moral  health  of  a  community.  ;is 
of  an  individual,  than  the  quality  of  the  recreation 
that  it  takes.  The  question  of  whether  recreation  is 
oris  not  taken  need  not  be  considered.    Evervone  takes 


54  LIBRARY     ESSAYS 

recreation;  if  means  for  the  healthy  normal  variety 
are  not  provided,  the  other  kind  will  occupy  its  place. 
And  the  healthy  normal  individual — child  or  adult- 
prefers  the  first  kind  if  he  can  get  it.    With  the  phys- 
ical variety  the  library  has  nothing  to  do;  but  to  pur- 
vey proper  intellectual  recreation  is  one  of  its  most 
important  provinces.     Is  this  adequately  done?    Is  it 
done  at  all?    Does  the  librarian  exalt  other  functions 
of  his  great  machine  and  neglect  this  one?    The  large 
amount  of  fiction  circulated  in  most  public  libraries 
is  generally  taken  as  an  indication  that  the  quantity 
of  its  recreational  content  is  considerable,  whatever 
may  be  said  of  the  quality;  but  this  is  a  very  super- 
ficial way  of  looking  at  the  matter.     There  is  educa- 
tional material  of  the  highest   value   in    fiction    and 
nearly  every  non-fiction  class  contains  books  of  value 
for  recreation.     Moreover,  what  may  be  recreation  to 
one  man  may  be  the  hardest  kind  of  study  to  another. 
The  enthusiast  in  higher  mathematics  may  extract  as 
pnre  amusement  from  a  book  on  the  theory  of  func- 
tions as  his  neighbor  would  from  the  works  of  "John 
Henry."    In  short,  it  is  very  difficult  to  separate  edu- 
cation and  recreation.     Good  work  presupposes  good 
play.     It  is  simply  our  duty  to  view  the  library  as  a 
whole  and  to  decide  whether  it  contains  the  means  of 
satisfying  so  much  of  the  community's  demand  for 
recreation  as  is  wholesome  and  proper.     Whether  it 
does  this  may  be  judged  from  the  freedom  with  which 
the  library  is   used   for   recreational    purposes   com- 
pared with  other  agencies.     A  proper  admixture  of 
physical  and  intellectual  amusement  is  required  by 
everybody;  is  the  library  doing  its  share  toward  the 
purveying  of  the  latter  form?    I  do  not  know  any  bet- 
ter way  of  finding  out  than  for  the  library  trustees 
to  use  their  eyes  and   ears,    nor   any   more   effective 
remedy  for  inadequate  results  along  this  line  than 


DUTY  OF  A  LIBRARY  TRUSTEE 

the  pressure  that  they  can  bring  to  bear  <m  their  li- 
brarian. 

Social  results. — Under  this  head  we  may  group  a 
very  large  number  of  results  that  arc  apt  to  be  over- 
looked or  taken  for  granted.  They  may  perhaps  be 
summarized  in  the  statement  that  the  library  should 
take  its  proper  place  in  the  institutional  life  of  the 
community.  What  this  is  will  depend  largely  on  the 
community's  size  and  its  social  content.  In  many 
small  towns  the  library  naturally  assumes  great  so- 
cial importance;  in  a  city  it  may  be  relatively  of  less 
weight,  though  perhaps  its  influence  in  the  aggregate 
may  be  even  greater.  Whether  it  is  doing  this  part 
of  its  work  properly  may  probably  be  best  ascer- 
tained by  comparison  with  the  work  of  other  institu- 
tions that  go  to  build  up  the  social  fabric — the  church, 
the  home,  the  club,  the  social  assembly.  Docs  the 
dweller  in  the  community  torn  as  naturally  to  the 
library  for  intellectual  help  as  be  does  to  the  church 
for  religious  consolation?  Does  be  seek  intellectual 
recreation  there  as  he  seeks  physical  recreation  at  bis 
athletic  club  or  social  entertainment  at  a  dance? 
And  so  seeking,  does  he  find?  Does  he  come  to  re- 
gard the  library  as  his  intellectual  home  and  the  li- 
brarian and  his  assistants  as  friends?  What,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  the  attitude  of  the  library  staff  toward 
the  public?  Is  it  inviting  or  repellent,  friendly  or 
coldly  hostile,  helpful  or  indifferent?  Here  is  a  whole 
body  of  results  that  are,  in  a  way,  the  most  important 
that  a  library  can  produce,  and  x^t  it  is  impossible 
to  set  them  down  in  figures;  they  can  scarcely  even 
be  expressed  in  words.  The  social  status  of  ;i  libra- 
ry is  like  a  man's  reputation  or  bis  credit;  it  is  built 
up  by  thousands  of  separate  acts  ami  by  an  attitude 
maintained  consistently  for  years;  yet  ;i  breath  may 
blast  it.     Of  this  position  a  board  of  trustees  should 


56  LIBRARY     ESSAYS 

be  particularly  proud  and  its  members  should  do  their 
best  to  uphold  it.  If  they  realize  by  those  many  deli- 
cate indications  that  we  all  recognize  but  cannot  for- 
mulate, that  the  library  is  failing  to  maintain  it,  the 
librarian  should  hear  from  them.  They  should  let 
him  know  that  something  is  wrong  and  that  they  ex- 
pect him  to  right  it.  If  he  does  not  know  how,  that  is 
an  indication  that  his  personality  and  ability  are 
parts  of  the  failure. 

This,  then  from  the  writer's  standpoint,  is  the 
whole  duty  of  a  trustee — or  rather  of  a  board  of 
trustees — to  see  clearly  what  it  wants,  to  give  the 
librarian  his  orders,  and  to  require  an  accounting. 

I  am  frequently  struck  with  the  attitude  of  libra- 
rians toward  their  boards  of  trustees,  not  as  shown 
in  their  public  acts,  but  as  revealed  in  conversation 
among  themselves.  A  board  is  apt  to  be  adjudged 
good  or  bad,  satisfactory  or  unsatisfactory,  as  it 
takes  a  more  or  less  passive  part  in  the  administra- 
tion of  the  library.  If  it  acts  simply  to  approve 
what  the  librarian  does  and  to  see  that  he  gets  the 
necessary  funds,  it  is  regarded  as  ideal.  All  that 
most  librarians  seem  to  want  is  to  be  given  plenty 
of  money  and  then  to  be  let  alone.  This  is  a  view 
of  the  whole  duty  of  a  trustee  with  which  I  do  not 
sympathize.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  not  to  be  denied 
that  boards  of  trustees  have  done  much  to  encourage 
this  attitude  because  when  they  are  really  active  in 
their  interest  their  activity  looks  too  closely  to  de- 
tail. They  are  then  apt  to  interfere  in  the  regulation 
of  methods  rather  than  to  require  results  and  after- 
ward ascertain  whether  and  in  what  degree  these 
results  have  been  reached. 

A  board  of  trustees  is  the  supreme  authority  in 
a  library.  I  would  have  this  fact  realized  in  its  full- 
est meaning  by  both  trustees  and  librarian.     And  I 


DUTY  OF  A  LIBRARY  TRUSTEE 

would  have  the  board  exercise  its  supremity  id  what 
may  be  called  the  American  manner.  The  people 
constitute  the  supreme  authority  both  in  Great  Brit- 
ain and  in  the  United  States.  In  the  former  coun- 
try, however,  this  authority  is  symbolized  by  the 
person  of  a  monarch,  who  reigns  but  does  not  gov- 
ern; and  the  minutest  details  of  administration  are 
attended  to  by  the  people  in  the  persons  of  their 
parliamentary  representatives  and  of  the  cabinet, 
which  is,  in  effect,  a  parliamentary  committee.  In 
this  country,  on  the  other  hand,  we  entrust  adminis- 
trative details  very  largely  to  our  chief  magistrate 
and  his  personally  appointed  advisers.  We  tell  him 
what  to  do  and  leave  him  to  do  it  as  he  thinks  best ; 
and  though  Congress  is  disposed  at  times  to  inter- 
fere in  the  details  of  administration,  these  usually 
consist  more  largely  of  departmental  decisions  and 
rulings  than  of  definite  provisions  of  a  legislative 
act.  The  President  of  the  United  States  is  the  peo- 
ple's general  executive  officer  and  administrative  ex- 
pert in  precisely  the  same  sense  that  the  librarian  oc- 
cupies that  office  in  his  own  library.  Congress  and 
the  board  of  trustees  bear  similar  relations  to  these 
officers.  And  although  this  may  be  carrying  the 
comparison  of  small  things  with  great  to  the  point 
of  absurdity,  it  shows  clearly  that  the  American  idea 
of  delegated  authority  is  to  make  the  authority  great. 
and  the  corresponding  responsibility  strict.  That 
the  best  results  have  been  attained  in  this  country  by 
following  out  this  plan  in  all  fields,  from  the  highest 
government  positions  to  the  humblest  commercial 
posts,  seems  to  be  undoubted;  and  I  believe  that  th  - 
library  has  been  a  conspicuous  example. 

Appoint  a  good  man,  then,  as  your  administra- 
tive expert;  give  him  a  free  rein,  but  not  in  the  sense 
of  following  him  to  dictate  the  whole  policy  of  your 


58  LIBRARY     ESSAYS 

library.  Decide  for  yourselves  the  broad  lines  of 
that  policy,  relying  on  your  own  common  sense  to- 
gether with  his  expert  advice;  require  him  to  fol- 
low out  those  lines  to  a  successful  issue,  and  hold 
him  responsible  for  the  outcome.  So  doing  you  shall 
fulfil,  so  far  as  the  limited  vision  of  one  librarian 
enables  him  to  see.  the  whole  duty  of  a  trustee. 


THE  DAY'S  WORK:  SOME  CONDITIONS  AND 
SOME    [DEALS* 

What  is  the  library  for?  What  are  we,  who  are 
in  charge  of  it,  to  do  with  it?  What  point  are  we 
striving  to  reach,  and  how  shall  we  get  t  here? 

First  of  all,  the  library  is  a  collection  <»f  hooks. 
Books  are  to  be  used  by  reading  them.  The  whole 
machinery  of  the  library,  its  buildings,  its  depart1 
ments,  its  regulations,  its  disciplined  staff,  are  to 
bring  together  the  reader  and  the  hooks.  Whatever 
auxiliary  work  the  library  may  undertake,  this  must 
be  its  first  task. 

Now  to  what  end  is  this  done?  A  hook  from  the 
material  point  of  view  is  so  much  Leather,  paper  and 
printer's  ink,  but  on   the   intellectual    and    spiritual 

side  it  is  a  storage  battery  of  ideas.     To  put  a  1 k 

into  a  reader's  hand  is  to  complete  a  mysterious  cir- 
cuit between  the  writer  s  and  the  reader's  mind.  This 
charging  of  the  mind  with  ideas  is  what  we  call  edu- 
cation. To  the  physiologist  it  is  a  mere  modification 
of  brain  structure;  to  the  economist  and  the  historian 
it  spreads  further  out;  it  is  a  modification  of  the  in- 
dividual's action  toward  the  whole  world;  it  is  the 
alteration  of  the  world's  present  status  and  future 
history.  Education  cannot  be  accomplished  by  hooks 
alone;  it  can  even  be  accomplished  wholly  without 
them;  but  if  they  are  used  properly,  there  is  do  one 
agent  that  can  do  more  for  education  than  these  de 
vices  for  the  storage  and  transmission  of  ideas.  Thar 
the  library  is  an  educational  institution  is  now  gen- 

♦Presidential    address    before    the    New    York    Librarj      lasoctfttloa. 

Lake    Placid,    September  21,    1903. 


60  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

erally  recognized.  It  is  common  to  call  it  an  adjunct 
to  the  school,  or  to  speak  of  it  as  continuing  the  work 
of  the  school.  That  the  school  and  the  library  should 
work  hand  in  hand  where  it  is  possible,  goes  without 
saying.  But  I  think  we  may  properly  object  to  any 
phraseology  that  implies  the  subordination  of  the  li- 
brary to  the  school.  The  library  stores  books  and 
makes  them  available.  Part  of  the  school's  work  al- 
so is  to  make  available  the  contents  of  books.  The 
library  may  continue  the  work  of  the  school;  but  so 
in  some  cases  may  the  school  merely  complete  the 
work  of  the  library.  Many  a  student  has  received  his 
first  inspiration  and  instruction  in  the  library  and 
has  been  thereby  stimulated  to  enter  a  regular  course 
of  study.  It  is  better  to  let  the  library  stand  on  its 
own  merits  as  an  instructional  agent.  The  difference 
between  it  and  the  school,  fundamentally,  is  that  the 
library's  educational  energy  is  chiefly  potential  while 
that  of  the  school  is,  or  should  be,  dynamic.  Yet 
though  the  library  is  only  a  potential  force — energy 
in  storage — the  library  plus  the  librarian  may  and 
should  be  dynamic  too.  We  then  have  in  both  school 
and  library  the  book  and  the  teacher,  with  the  differ- 
ence that  in  the  school  the  book  is  only  the  teacher's 
tool,  while  in  the  library  the  librarian  exists  to  care 
for  the  book,  to  place  it  in  his  hands  who  needs  it, 
and  to  make  it  effective. 

But  when  we  have  emphasized  the  educational 
side  of  the  library's  activity  we  have  by  no  means  ex- 
hausted its  field.  Its  recreative  function  is  hardly 
less  important.  A  very  large  proportion  of  the  libra- 
ry's users  go  to  it  for  recreation  or  relaxation.  They 
obtain  this,  of  course,  in  the  same  way  that  they  ob- 
tain education  from  books,  namely,  by  the  acquisi- 
tion of  new  ideas  or  mental  images.  The  recreation 
comes  in  from  the  fact  that  these  ideas  temporarily 


THE    DAY'S    WORK  HI 

distract  the  attention  from  other  ideas  connected  with 
daily  work  and  worry,  and  that  they  ease  the  brain 
in  the  same  way  that  a  strained  mnscle  may  lit-  eased 
by  gentle  exercise.  Evidently  it  is  impossible  to  draw 
a  line  between  these  two  classes  of  a  library's  actfo 
ity.  A  zoological  or  a  botanical  gardeD  is  an  educa- 
tional institution,  so  is  an  art  museum.  Yet  the  large 
majority  of  those  who  go  to  them  do  so  for  amuse- 
ment, and  the  educational  benefits  obtained  are  in- 
cidental. Those  benefits,  however,  are  none  the  less 
real,  and  it  would  evidently  be  impossible  to  give  sep- 
arate statistics  of  those  w7ho  have  made  educational 
and  recreative  use  of  the  institution.  Yet  we  find  peo- 
ple trying  to  do  this  very  thing  in  the  case  of  the  pub- 
lic library,  which  case  is  quite  comparable  with  those 
stated  above.  It  is  assumed,  in  the  lirsr  place,  that 
the  use  of  fiction  is  purely  recreative,  while  that  of 
non-fiction  is  educational;  and,  in  the  second  place, 
that  the  recreative  use  of  the  library  is  to  be  con- 
demned or  at  least  discouraged,  in  comparison  with 
the  other.  That  either  of  these  can  be  sustained  is 
very  doubtful.  The  attempted  subordination  of  the 
recreative  wrork  of  the  library  to  the  educational  is 
at  best  invidious.  Each  has  its  place  in  the  scheme 
of  things  and  comparison  in  this  case  is  worse  than 
odious,  it  is  misleading.  Further,  it  is  positively  im- 
possible to  draw  a  line  between  educational  and  rec- 
reative books.  So  far  as  motives  go,  one  may  read 
Gibbon  for  entertainment  and  Madame  de  Stael'a 
"Corinne"  as  an  Italian  guide  book.  So  far  as  results 
are  concerned,  the  intelligent  reader  always  acquires 
new  ideas  as  he  reads;  and  in  most  cases  the  very 
same  idea  may  and  does  have  both  an  educational 
and  a  recreative  function.  But  although  we  can  draw 
no  line,  it  is  quite  possible  to  pick  out  books  on  the 
one  side  and  on  the  other,  and  to  assert  that  these 


62  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

read  chiefly  for  educational  purposes  and  those  for 
recreation/  On  which  side  shall  the  library  throw  its 
influence?  There  are  many  good  librarians  who  feel 
that  the  popular  tendency  is  too  strong  towards  rec- 
reation and  that  the  library  should  restore  the  bal- 
ance by  throwing  its  weight  on  the  other  side.  Others 
see  in  the  popular  desire  for  recreative  reading  only 
a  hopeful  reaction  from  the  mental  tension  and  over- 
work with  which,  as  a  nation,  we  are  doubtless 
chargeable.  Between  these  two  points  of  view  I  be- 
lieve that  the  equilibrium  of  the  public  library  is  safe, 
and  that  it  is  in  no  danger  of  developing  unduly  either 
on  the  recreative  or  on  the  educational  side. 

Personally  I  have  never  felt  that  the  user  of  libra- 
ries or  any  other  type  of  the  average  American  was 
in  danger  from  too  much  recreation.  If  there  is  any 
use  of  a  library  that  may  have  a  vicious  tendency  it 
is  its  use  for  pure  pastime  in  the  etymological  sense— 
the  reading  of  books  with  absolutely  no  aim  at  all  save 
to  make  the  time  pass.  Now  to  make  time  pass 
pleasantly  or  profitably  may  be  a  most  legitimate 
object.  Not  that,  and  not  any  lawful  aim  is  objection- 
able. But  aimlessness — the  lack  of  an  aim — the  tak- 
ing out  of  books  to  skim  or  to  glance  at,  or  to  look  at 
the  pictures,  with  no  desire  for  amusement,  or  profit, 
or  anything  else — that  is  certainly  worthy  of  condem- 
nation. There  is  more  of  it  than  we  know,  and  it  con- 
stitutes a  menace  to  our  intellectual  future.  News] ta- 
per reading  fosters  it,  but  not  necessarily.  Newspa- 
per reading  with  an  aim  is  far  better  than  aimless 
skimming  and  skipping  of  a  literary  classic,  and  I 
should  rather  see  a  boy  of  mine  reading  the  most  sen- 
sational dime  novel  he  could  lay  hands  on,  with  the 
definite  desire  and  intention  of  finding  out  how 
Bloody  Bill  got  his  revenge,  than  lazily  turning  over 
the  pages  of  Scott  with  no  idea  of  what  the  storv  was 


THE    DAY'S    WORK  0'3 

about.  The  first  would  be  the  case  of  a  good  reader 
and  a  bad  book;  the  second  that  of  a  good  book  and 
a  bad  reader.  The  library  can  easily  deal  with  the 
book;  it  cannot  so  easily  manage  the  reader,  though 
it  may  try  to  do  so.  In  the  case  of  the  bad  reader 
the  storage  battery  of  ideas  has  lost  its  connection. 
It  would  be  well  for  some  of  us  if  we  should  forget 
for  the  moment  the  difference  between  lid  ion  and  non- 
fiction  and  should  try  to  mend  this  broken  link. 

And  now  a  word  about  ourselves.  What  arc  we, 
who  are  engaged. in  this  work,  laboring  for?  Why 
are  we  working,  and  what  do  we  expect  to  accom- 
plish? In  answering  this  question  it  will  be  better 
for  us  to  free  ourselves  entirely  from  the  bondage  of 
words  that  mean  nothing.  Some  of  us— I  hope  very 
many  of  us — are  in  the  library  work  solely  because 
we  love  it  and  cannot  keep  out  of  it.  Others  are  try- 
ing with  more  or  less  success  to  persuade  themselves 
that  this  is  their  reason.  Still  others  cannot  truth- 
fully say  that  they  have  had  a  "call  to  library  work," 
and  some  of  these  are  conscientious  enough  to  fear 
that  they  are  in  the  wrong  place  and  that  the  work  is 
suffering  thereby.  To  these  I  desire  to  address  a  word 
of  consolation  and  encouragement.  The  impression 
is  very  general  that  the  greatest  work  of  the  greatest 
minds  had  no  motive  but  the  productive  impulse.  The 
poet,  according  to  this  view,  sings  because  he  cannot 
help  singing;  the  artist  paints  solely  to  satisfy  the 
creative  longing  within  him;  the  musician  composes 
for  the  same  reason.  Now  the  fact  is  that  a  man  who 
is  capable  of  great  work,  or  of  ordinarily  good  work, 
may  produce  it  under  a  variety  of  impulses.  Some 
act  more  strongly  on  one  man;  others  on  another;  or 
the  same  man  may  be  more  susceptible  to  a  given  im- 
pulse at  one  time  or  place  than  at  another.  Without 
a  doubt,  many  of  our  immortal  works  were  the  result 


64  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

of  simple  inability  to  keep  from  producing  them.    But 
just  as  certainly,  others  were  the  work  of  men  who 
had  to  school  themselves  by  long  practice  and  then  to 
hold  themselves  to  the  work  with  iron  determination. 
"Genius"'  says  Oarlyle,  "is  nothing  but  an  infinite  ca- 
pacity for  taking  pains."     To  which  a  modern  critic 
replies,  "On  the  contrary,  genius  is  an  infinite  capac- 
ity tor' doing  things  without  taking  any  pains  at  all." 
Both  are  right.    There  are  both  these  kinds  of  genius 
—and  many  others.    The  writer  who  attempts  to  bind 
down  genius  to  rales  and  formulae  will  have  a  hard 
task.     And  what  is  true  of  genius  is  also  true  of  or- 
dinarily good  work— the  work  that  you  and  I  are  try- 
ing to  do  in  our  libraries.    Some  of  us  do  it  easily  be- 
cause we  cannot  help  it;  others  do  it  with  more  or  less 
difficulty  under  the  pressure  of  one  or  another  need. 
One.  though  the  work  itself  comes  hard  to  him,  loves 
the  result  to  be  accomplished;  another,  perhaps,  is 
toiling  primarily  to  support  himself  and  those  de- 
pendent on   him.      What   of   that?      We   have   been 
placed  where  we  are,  to  secure  certain  results.     We 
want  the  help  of  every  one  who  can  contribute  a  share 
of  honest,  intelligent  work  toward  the  attainment  of 
these  results,  and  we  shall  not  ask  for  motives  or  in- 
quire into  the  exact  amount  of  effort  that  was  neces- 
sary, provided  the  work  has  been  done  and  done  well. 
I  have  the  greatest  sympathy  for  the  conscientious 
library  assistant  who  feels  that  she  ought  to  love  her 
work  in  the  same  way  perhaps  that  she  loves  music 
or  skating,  or  a  walk  through  the  autumn  woods,  and 
who,  because  she  does  not  sit  down  to  paste  labels  or 
stand  up  to  wait  on  the  desk  with  the  feeling  of  ex- 
hilaration that  accompanies  these  other  acts,  is  afraid 
that  library  work  is  not  her  metier. 

Such  workers  should  possess  their  souls  in  peace. 
It  is  very  common  for  routine  work  to  pall  upon  him 
who  does  it,  and  we  are  all  apt  to  think  that  no  work 


THE    DAY'S   WORK  65 

but  ours  has  any  routine.  Our  weary  eyes  see  only 
the  glorious  moments  of  success  in  the  lives  of  other 
toilers;  we  are  blind  to  the  years  of  drudgery  that 
led  to  them.  The  remedy  is  to  look  forward.  You 
may  not  enjoy  climbing  the  mountain  step  by  step, 
but  the  view  from  the  summit  is  glorious.  And  if  to 
sustain  yourself  on  the  climb  you  think  of  the  bread 
and  cheese  that  you  have  in  your  lunch  basket,  I  can- 
not see  that  there  is  aught  to  complain  of. 

All  over  the  world  there  are  workers  who  feel  that 
they  are  not  worthy  of  their  work.  It  is  dull ;  it  palls 
on  them.  But  if  their  lot  had  only  been  different! 
If  their  work  had  been  that  of  the  musician  or  the 
artist!  Then  toil  would  become  pleasure,  and  the 
hours  that  now  drag  heavily  would  flit  on  wings. 
Very  little  of  this  feeling  is  justifiable,  and  these  dis- 
satisfied workers  will  do  better  work  if  they  are  made 
to  realize  that  it  is  only  the  favored  few  who  can 
bring  enthusiasm  to  the  daily  routine.  The  most  that 
we  can  ask  of  the  average  worker  is  a  conviction  of 
the  usefulness  of  Ms  work  and  a  determination  to 
make  it  as  useful  as  possible.  More :  such  a  determin- 
ation honestly  lived  up  to  is  sure  to  beget  interest — 
that  concrete  interest  in  one's  work  that  is  worth 
much  more,  practically,  than  an  ideal  love  for  it.  The 
woman  who  goes  into  slum  work  impelled  only  by  a 
a  vague  love  for  humanity  is  apt  to  give  up  after  a 
little  when  she  discerns  that  humanity  in  the  concrete 
is  offensive  in  so  many  ways.  But  if  she  forces  her- 
self to  keep  on,  and  to  make  herself  as  useful  as  pos- 
sible, there  comes  the  personal  interest  that  will  bind 
her  to  her  task  and  that  will  increase  its  usefulness. 
So  it  is  with  library  work;  you  need  not  love  it  ideal- 
ly to  succeed  in  it;  you  need  only  buckle  down  to  it 
until  you  feel  the  personal  interest  that  will  carry 
you  through  triumphantly. 


66  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

And  what  is  it  all  about?  In  the  broadest  sense, 
as  I  have  already  said,  we  librarians  are  the  pur- 
veyors of  ideas  stored  up  in  books.  These  ideas  are 
more  to  man  than  mere  education — they  are  life  it- 
self. Life  is  growth,  not  stagnation — it  involves 
change  and  acquisition.  "Life  is  change,"  says  Cardin- 
;i  I  Newman,  "and  to  be  perfect,  one  must  have  changed 
many  times."  To  contribute  the  opportunity  and  the 
stimulus  for  such  change  is  our  business.  The  child 
cries  out  to  his  environment — "Give  me  ideas  and  ex- 
periences; good  and  pleasurable  if  you  can,  bad  or 
painful,  if  you  must,  but  give  me  ideas  and  exper- 
iences." I 'art  of  this  craving  it  is  the  duty  of  the 
public  library  to  satisfy.  The  craving  may  grow  less 
keen  as  we  grow  older,  but  it  never  really  ceases  to 
exist.  To  satisfy  that  craving  in  legitimate  ways  and 
to  guide  and  control  it  if  we  can  is  our  business, 
stated  in  the  broadest  possible  terms.  That  is  what 
we  are  aiming  at.  The  librarian  should  be  the  broad- 
est minded  of  mortals.  He  should  be  a  man  in  the 
widest  sense — to  him  nothing  human  should  be  alien. 

This  is  decidedly  broad  and  correspondingly  vague, 
Being  so,  it  may  be  interpreted  by  every  worker  in 
the  way  that  appeals  to  him  most.  To  one,  the  edu- 
cational work  of  the  library  will  make  the  strongest 
appeal;  to  another  its  recreational  function.  One 
may  prefer  to  lay  stress  on  the  guidance  of  children's 
reading;  another  on  reference  work  with  adults. 
These  are  all  phases  of  one  and  the  same  general  class 
of  acts — the  imparting  of  ideas  by  means  of  books — 
and  there  is  no  reason  why  each  worker  should  not 
gain  interest  in  that  work  by  and  through  the  partic- 
ular phase  that  appeals  to  him. 

"I  wish/'  says  one  of  James  Lane  Allen's  charac- 
ters, "that  some  virtue— say  the  virtue  of  truthful- 
ness—could be  known  throughout    the  world  as  the 


THE    DAYS    WORK  67 

unfailing  mark  of  the  American.  Suppose  the  rest 
of  mankind  would  agree  that  this  virtue  constituted 
the  characteristic  of  the  American!  That  would  be 
fame  for  ages."  We  librarians,  in  like  manner,  not 
only  wish  but  strive  to  make  some  one  virtue  charac- 
teristic of  our  work— say  the  virtue  of  usefulness. 
"As  useful  as  a  librarian,"  "As  indispensable  as  the 
public  library"— these  arc  not  yet,  I  am  afraid,  house- 
hold phrases.    But  why  should  we  not  make  them  so? 


LIBRARY  STATISTICS 

It  is  a  valuable  exercise  to  examine  into  the  origin 

and  uses  of  the  things  that  we  have  I n  accustomed 

to  take  for  granted  and  to  regard  almost  as  part  of 
the  accepted  order  of  nature.  The  result  will  often 
be  startling  and  it  will  always  be  salutary,  if  the  ex- 
aminer be  sane  and  conservative.  Therefore  a  very 
good  way  to  begin  a  discussion  of  statistics  is  to  query 
whether  they  are  of  present  value  at  all,  or  whether 
they  are  old  fashioned  rubbish  and  had  better  be  dis- 
carded. 

Statistics  are  the  numerical  statements  of  results 
or  facts.  Now  thousands  of  individuals  and  thou- 
sands of  bodies — families,  clans,  associations,  that  ac- 
complish much  in  this  world,  go  on  very  well  without 
keeping  any  record  at  all  of  what  they  do.  This  is 
indisputable.  On  the  other  hand  we  shall  see  that 
as  work  is  done  well  and  carefully  there  is  an  increas- 
ing disposition  to  make  and  keep  a  record  of  results; 
and  as  the  work  extends  in  scope  and  complexity, 
the  record,  too,  becomes  more  complex.  Take,  for  in- 
stance, the  record  of  so  apparently  simple  a  transac- 
tion as  the  payment  and  receipt  of  money.  The  indi- 
vidual who  has  little  of  it  to  receive  and  disburse  may 
go  all  his  life  without  keeping  so  much  as  a  cash  ac- 
count, much  less  a  set  of  books.  He  may  even  spend 
a  considerable  income  in  the  same  way,  including  the 
maintenance  of  a  household  and  the  support  of  a  fain 
ily,  and  he  may,  on  the  whole,  do  it  wisely  and  well 
Yet  of  two  men  of  the  same  means,  one  of  whom 
should  conduct  his  affairs  thus,  while  the  other  kept 


70  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

a  rational  system  of  household  and  personal  accounts, 
the  latter  would  universally  be  regarded  as  pursuing 
the  better  course.  And  as  we  pass  from  this  to  the 
conduct  of  a  business  we  recognize  that  the  man  who 
engages  in  commerce  without  keeping  proper  accounts 
is  a  fool  and  courts  failure,  and  that  the  larger  the 
business  and  the  more  widespread  the  interests,  the 
more  complicated  and  extensive  must  be  the  book- 
keeping. A  large  commercial  concern  may  thus  em- 
ploy a  special  department  with  a  large  staff  of  men 
simply  to  keep  record  of  its  financial  transactions. 
This  is  probably  the  most  ancient  kind  of  statistical 
record  and  the  one  whose  usefulness  is  most  general- 
ly recognized. 

In  like  manner  another  common  and  useful  statis- 
tical record — the  inventory,  or  list  of  articles  on  hand 
—although  not  commonly  and  regularly  taken  by  the 
individual,  becomes  absolutely  necessary  in  the  small- 
est kind  of  business,  and  without  it  the  merchant  can 
have  absolutely  no  idea  of  whether  he  is  conducting 
his  business  at  a  profit  or  a  loss.  When  we  go  on  fur- 
ther and  examine  the  conduct  of  great  commercial  or 
manufacturing  concerns  we  find  that  the  statistical 
department  becomes  of  increasing  importance,  the  de- 
tails collected  by  it  multiply  and  the  staff  of  persons 
whose  sole  duty  it  is  to  collect  and  to  discuss  them 
may  be  very  considerable.  That  a  great  manufactur- 
ing company  would  waste  time  and  money  on  a  task  of 
no  value  is  inconceivable,  and  there  is  thus  a  very 
strong  presumption  that  statistics  are  worth  some- 
thing. Even  where  bodies  of  men  have  so  little  power 
or  corporate  action  that  they  cannot  collect  statistics 
for  themselves,  it  is  generally  deemed  a  proper  ex- 
penditure of  the  public  money  to  do  so  at  the  common 
cost,  hence  governments  maintain  great  census  bur- 
eaus, whose  duty  it  is  not  only  to  count  heads  every 


LIBRARY     STATISTK  71 

few  years  but  to  tell  the  farmer  how  much  he  raises, 
the  merchant  how  much  merchandise  he  exports,  and 
so  on. 

Is  the  free  public  library  an  institution  that  will 
be  benefited  by  the  collection,  tabulation  and  discus- 
sion of  the  results  of  its  work,  so  far  as  they  can  be 
numerically  expressed?  What  are  the  objects  of  such 
collection  in  the  instances  above  enumerated?  In  the 
first  place,  they  are  to  satisfy  mere  curiosity.  If  such 
curiosity  is  trivial,  the  collection  of  statistics  is  evi- 
dently useless,  and  I  am  afraid  that  more  than  a  little 
of  it,  public  and  private,  falls  under  this  head.  But 
curiosity,  even  when  it  pies  no  further,  may  be  per- 
fectly legitimate.  Especially  is  this  so  about  ones 
own  affairs.  When  a  man  is  attempting  anything  he 
is  naturally  curious  to  know  whether  he  has  succeed- 
ed or  not ;  and  to  find  out,  if  possible,  precisely  how- 
far  he  has  gone  in  the  desired  direction.  He  may 
have  property  enough  to  support  him  beyond  all  doubt, 
but  it  is  quite  right  that  he  should  want  to  keep  a 
list  of  his  stocks  and  bonds  and  to  know  whether 
they  have  risen  or  fallen  in  value  during  the  year. 
Still  further,  curiosity  about  other  people's  affairs 
may  be  legitimate,  as,  for  instance,  when  one  is  re- 
sponsible  for  their  proper  conduct  in  greater  <>r  less 
degree.  In  the  same  way  the  trustees  of  a  free  public 
library,  representing  the  public  at  large,  by  whom  the 
library  is  supported  and  carried  on,  have  a  right  to 
know  all  possible  particulars  regarding  the  way  in 
which  their  librarian  has  carried  on  his  work  and  the 
results  he  has  Peached  in  it,  and  the  municipality  in 
turn  should  require  of  the  trustees  a  strict,  account  of 
the  funds  that  they  have  administered.  All  this  infor- 
mation, as  far  as  it  can  be  stated  numerically,  con- 
stitutes a  mass  of  statistics,  and  this  one  reason  am- 
ply justifies  its  collection  and  would  justify  a  much 


I- 


LIBRARY    ESSAYS 


larger  number  of  tables  than  is  usually  given  in  a  li- 
brary report,  provided  only  that  the  information  is 
to  the  point  and  is  or  should  be  in  public  demand. 

~~But  we  cannot  stop  here.  A  free  library,  it  is 
true,  is  not  a  money-making  concern,  but  it  certainly 
should  be  run  on  business  principles.  The  public  puts 
into  it  a  large  sum  of  money  and  has  a  right  to  ex- 
pect certain  returns,  which  are  none  the  less  definite 
that  they  cannot  themselves  be  represented  in  dollars 
and  cents.  The  library  statistic  books  are  therefore, 
in  a  way,  the  records  of  the  business;  they  show  wheth- 
er it  is  being  conducted  conservatively  or  wastefully, 
at  a  profit  or  at  a  loss.  And  as  all  these  record  books 
are  open,  they  enable  us,  or  should  enable  us  to  make 
instructive  comparisons  between  the  methods  and  re- 
sults of  one  institution  and  those  of  another. 

But  even  this  is  not  all.  It  is  a  maxim  of  this 
strenuous  age  that  all  things  are  good  or  bad  accord- 
ing to  the  results  to  which  they  lead,  not  in  the  nar- 
row sense  that  "the  end  justifies  the  means,"  but  in 
the  broader  sense  that  we  must  know  things  by  their 
fruits.  The  man  who  said  "I  go,  sir,"  and  went  not, 
was  judged  by  his  acts,  not  by  his  words ;  and  no  mat- 
ter how  much  knowledge  we  store  up  and  how  many 
tables  of  data  we  collect  we  shall  be  derelict  in  our 
duty  if  we  regard  this  as  an  end  in  itself.  The  state 
of  mind  in  which  the  Mahatma  spends  his  life  in  im- 
passivity, contemplating  inward  things  and  making 
no  outward  motion,  may  have  certain  advantages,  but 
it  is  not  consonant  with  the  spirit  of  this  age  and 
this  land.  By  which  I  mean  that  when  we  have  found 
out  something  from  our  statistics  we  must  do  some- 
thing with  it.  More;  we  must  so  direct  our  statisti- 
cal investigations  that  they  bear  directly  on  a  possible 
course  of  action.  This  is  done  by  the  great  manufac- 
turing  concerns   that   maintain     statistical    depart- 


LIBRARY    STATISTS  S  73 

merits;  but  we  all  use  statistics  in  this  way.  If  a 
boy  wants  to  go  to  the  circus  he  first  looks  through 
his  pockets  to  see  whether  he  has  enough  cash.  Here 
is  the  germ  of  a  statistical  investigation  conducted 
for  the  specific  purpose  of  getting  information  on 
which  future  action  is  to  be  based.  Here  sometimes, 
where  the  opportunity  of  collecting  statistics  is  very 
great,  and  expense  is  no  object,  is  a  good  excuse  for 
gathering  a  greal  deal  thai  would  seem  to  be  useless, 
with  the  expectation  that  sonic  of  it  may  turn  out  to 
be  interesting  and  may  suggest  som<-  line  of  work  that 
had  not  previously  been  thought  of.  To  go  as  far  as 
this,  the  institution  must  be  large  and  rich. 

But  how  many  of  us  do  anything  with  our  statis- 
tics? Mow  many  collect  statistics  along  special  lines 
to  assist  in  deciding  what  we  shall  do  along  those 
lines?  flow  many  of  us,  rather,  consider  that,  when 
our  statistics  have  been  collected  a  disagreeable  task 
has  been  done,  and  put  them  behind  us  till  the  year 
rolls  round  again? 

Perhaps  we  have  had  enough  now  of  the  philos- 
ophy of  statistics.  Let  us  sec  what  concrete  kinds  of 
statistics  are  necessary  and  in  what  order  of  impor- 
tance. 

First  comes  an  itemized  account  of  receipts  and 
expenditures.  This  is  so  obvious  that  it  is  not  gen- 
erally considered  as  library  statistics  at  all.  But  it 
may  and  should  he  extended  a  little.  Look  at  all  your 
other  tables  of  statistics  through  financial  spectacles. 
Compare  your  receipts  with  your  population.  How 
much  does  your  town  give  per  capita  for  library  work? 
Compare  this  figure  with  tin1  same  for  other  towns. 
Compare  your  expenditures  with  your  circulation. 
How  much  has  your  library  cost  you  per  book  cir- 
culated? Compare  your  expenditure  for  books  with 
the  number  purchased  and  tell  us  the  average  cost  of 


74  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

a  book  and  how  this  compares  with  the  cost  in  for- 
mer years.  Do  this  for  a  half-dozen  other  phases  of 
your  work  and  put  the  result  in  as  many  brief,  crisp 
sentences.  If  you  haven't  room  in  your  report,  cut 
out  some  of  the  platitudes;  we  all  insert  them  in  mo- 
ments of  weakness  and,  once  in,  it  sometimes  requires 
an  earnest  search  to  detect  and  expunge  them. 

Next  in  importance  comes  an  account  of  your 
books — how  many  there  are  in  the  library,  on  what 
subjects,  and  how  many  have  been  added  during  the 
year  in  each  subject;  how  many  gifts  you  have  had; 
how  many  books  have  been  lost.  This  involves  tak- 
ing a  careful  inventory  at  least  once  a  year.  You  see 
1  am  putting  this  before  any  account  of  circulation. 
A  good  many  libraries  take  no  inventory  or  take  it  at 
too  infrequent  intervals,  because  they  have  no  time. 
You  might  as  well  say  you  have  no  time  to  keep  a 
c;ish  account.  This  is  business  and  comes  first.  Leave 
off  counting  your  circulation  if  you  must,  but  keep 
count  of  the  public  property  in  your  care  as  conscien- 
tiously as  you  keep  count  of  the  money  in  your  cash 
drawer.  If  you  can  do  nothing  else  make  a  simple 
enumeration  of  volumes  without  taking  account  of 
classes,  but  do  it  thoroughly.  The  trouble  with  the 
inventory  is  that,  like  the  old-fashioned  houseclean- 
ing,  it  is  usually  done  all  at  once  and  becomes  an  an- 
nual bugbear.  One  way  of  making  it  easier  is  to 
spread  it  over  the  year,  counting  and  reporting  one 
class  every  month  and  treating  it  as  a  part  of  the 
regular  routine.  In  this  category  of  statistical  rec- 
ords comes  the  list  of  your  books,  which  you  must 
surely  have  in  some  form,  even  though  you  may  not 
have  accession  book,  shelf  list  and  dictionary  cata- 
log. For  statistical  purposes  indeed,  the  last-named 
may  be  left  out  of  account. 

Next  in  order  of  importance  come  statistics  of 


LIBRARY     STATISTICS  75 

circulation.  Yon  should  know  how  many  books  are 
given  out  for  home  use  every  day  and  how  these  are 
distributed  among  the  classes.  Do  not  adhere  too 
strictly  to  your  classification.  Subdivide  and  combine 
your  classes  so  that  the  results  will  be  of  interest  to 
your  particular  public.  Always  remember  in  discus- 
sing these  statistics  that  they  are  not  so  much  a  rec- 
ord of  work  done  as  a  rough  proportional  indication 
of  that  work,  and  are  therefore  of  relative,  not  of  ab- 
solute interest.  You  are  not  to  attach  any  meaning 
to  the  fact,  taken  by  itself,  that  your  circulation  was 
5280  for  the  month  of  May,  but  if  you  find  that  it  was 
only  3120  in  the  previous  May  you  may  justly  con- 
clude that  the  work  of  your  library  is  increasing. 

In  the  circulation  category  comes  the  record  of 
the  hall  or  library  use  of  books,  the  reference  use,  and 
the  books  outstanding  at  any  particular  time.  Hall 
use  is  very  difficult  to  keep  in  a  free  access  library, 
but  an  attempt  should  be  made  to  do  so.  It  is  not 
quite  synonymous  with  reference  use.  If  a  man  sits 
down  in  your  library  and  actually  reads  a  novel  with- 
out taking  it  home,  that  is  hall  or  library  use,  but  not 
reference  use.  If  he  merely  refers  to  the  same  book 
to  find  out  about  some  character,  that  is  reference  use. 
It  is  evidently  hard  to  separate  these  and  many  libra- 
ries do  not  attempt  to  do  so.  In  others,  where  there 
is  a  separate  reference  room,  any  us-'  of  books  in  this 
room  is  recorded  as  "reference  use."  The  number  of 
books  outstanding  should  be  taken  at  least  once  a 
month,  simply  by  counting  the  cards  in  the  circula- 
tion tray.  This  item  is  very  easy  to  ascertain,  very 
accurate,  and  is  interesting  and  useful  in  more  than 
one  way. 

Last  in  the  list  of  the  necessary  items  of  statistics 
comes  that  of  readers  or  users  of  the  library — the 
most  interesting  in  some  ways,  and  the  most  disap- 


76  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

pointingly  vague.  Presumably  your  users  fill  out 
some  kind  of  blank  form  of  application  and  have  their 
names  entered  in  a  book.  It  is  therefore  easy  to  give, 
as  is  usually  done,  the  total  registration  and  its  an- 
nual increase.  But  this  is  evidently  not  the  number 
of  actual  users  of  the  library.  Who  are  the  "actual 
users'"?  The  expression  itself  is  vague.  To  be  com- 
plete you  should  have  the  numbers  of  those  who  have 
used  the  library  within  one,  two,  and  three  days,  and 
so  on  back  indefinitely.  There  is  no  place  where  the 
line  may  be  drawn  between  "live"  and  "dead"  cards. 
But  such  statistics  are  too  elaborate  to  collect  regu- 
larly, so  that  the  ordinary  library  leaves  this  subject 
in  its  pristine  mistiness.  There  are  some  pretty  vari- 
ations of  it,  however,  which  may  be  gone  into  if  there 
is  time.  For  instance,  how  are  your  users  divided, 
according  to  occupation?  This  you  can  ascertain 
from  your  applications  provided  the  applicant  is  re- 
quired to  state  his  occupation.  Here  again  the  result 
is  for  registered  users,  not  actual  users.  Again,  how 
are  your  users  distributed  topographically?  The  re- 
sult of  this  inquiry  may  be  shown  graphically  on  a 
map,  and  it  is  particularly  valuable  when  one  is 
thinking  of  moving  or  of  establishing  a  branch ;  but 
it  takes  more  time  than  is  at  the  disposal  of  most 
librarians. 

Here,  I  believe,  ends  the  enumeration  of  necessary 
kinds  of  statistics.  In  each  kind  the  collection  may 
be  reduced  to  a  minimum;  but  the  librarian  must,  if 
the  library  is  to  be  maintained  at  all,  keep  a  cash  ac- 
count, count  the  books,  and  make  some  kind  of  a  list 
of  them.  Also,  if  at  all  possible  she  or  he  must  be 
able  to  tell  how  many  books  are  circulated  and  how 
many  users'  names  are  on  the  books.  This  is  the  mini- 
mum; the  maximum  is  fixed  only  by  considerations 
of  time  and  usefulness.     First  among  the  kinds  of 


LIBRARY     STATISTICS  77 

statistics  that  arc  not  absolutely  necessary,  but  inter- 
esting and  often  useful,  is  that  of  routine  work  done 
— letters  written,  visits  made,  cards  written.  This 
may  easily  be  carried  to  excess.  Then  there  is  the 
enormous  class  in  which  the  data  are  obtained  not 
directly,  but  by  comparison  of  other  data.  To  this 
class  belong  the  financial  comparisons  already  noted. 
For  instance,  by  comparing  the  circulation  of  sepa- 
rate classes  with  the  total  we  get  class  percentages — 
a  very  useful  type  of  statistics;  by  comparing  circula- 
tion with  hooks  on  shelves  we  get  the  average  circula- 
tion of  each  book,  etc.  There  is  no  end  to  the  varie- 
ties of  this  class  of  statistics,  and  they  may  be  rated 
all  the  way  from  "very  valuable"  to  "useless''  or  even 
"nonsensical".  The  whole  class  would  require  a  sep- 
arate paper  to  discuss. 

Let  all  these  statistics  tell  the  truth.  Let  them 
be  clear.  Tell  exactly  what  they  mean.  Otherwise 
they  will  certainly  mislead  and  are  worse  than  use- 
less. It  is  well  to  accompany  every  table  with  an 
explanatory  note  telling  exactly  how  the  data  were 
obtained  and  whether  they  are  of  a  high  or  a  low 
degree  of  accuracy,  in  case  you  do  not  know,  for 
instance,  whether  the  word  "juvenile"  as  generally 
used  means  the  entire  circulation  among  children,  or 
the  circulation  in  the  children's  room,  or  is  merely 
short  for  "juvenile  fiction,"  decide  what  it  shall 
mean  in  your  case  and  then  state  distinctly  what 
it  means.  Read  over  other  library  reports  critical- 
ly and  when  you  find  any  statistics  that  are  vague, 
see  to  it  that  that  particular  kind  of  vagueness  does 
not  occur  in  your  own  tables. 

And  after  it  is  all  over,  ask  yourself,  Now  what 
shall  I  do  with  all  this?  In  this  paper  only  a  few 
suggestions  can  he  made.  Take  first,  the  financial 
data.     If  you  find  that  your  town  is  giving  less  per 


78  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

capita  or  less  per  book  circulated  than  the  average, 
let  it  be  your  business  to  make  it  give  more.  There 
is  a  task  that  will  till  up  your  spare  moments. 
If  you  are  paying  for  books  more  per  book  than 
other  libraries,  try  to  buy  more  cheaply.  If  your 
inventory  show*  a  great  loss  of  books  by  theft,  try 
to  reduce  it  next  year  by  greater  vigilance.  If  your 
circulation  is  decreasing  ask  the  reason  why.  Get 
at  it  if  you  can  and  remedy  it  if  possible.  If  your 
circulation  shows  a  sudden  increase  in  a  particular 
class,  investigate  that  and  meet  it,  if  proper,  by  in- 
creased purchases  in  that  class.  If  a  class  that 
should  circulate  well  has  fallen,,  try  to  find  out 
why.  Is  your  collection  in  this  class  small  and 
poor?  Make  it  richer  and  larger.  Has  interest  in 
the  subject  fallen  off?     Try  to  stimulate  it. 

In  short,  instead  of  regarding  your  work  in  con- 
nection with  statistics  as  done  when  they  have  been 
collected,  think  that  it  has  not  yet  begun.  So  far 
as  your  own  work  is  concerned,  let  them  serve  only 
as  an  indication  of  the  weak  spots  that  must  be 
strengthened  and  of  the  promising  growths  that 
must  be  encouraged.  There  are  statistics  and  sta- 
tistics. Some  are  dead;  some  are  alive — vitalized 
and  vitalizing.  Not  all  of  the  library's  work  can 
be  stated  in  figures.  The  largest  part,  the  best  part, 
you  cannot  put  into  statistical  tables  at  all.  Yet 
rightly  used,  your  statistics  may  so  guide  and  direct 
you  along  the  lines  of  least  resistance,  even  in  this 
broader  and  finer  work,  that  your  energies  may  be 
put  forth  in  it  to  the  best  effect — that  you  may  aim 
right  and  that  your  shots  may  not  go  astray. 


OLD  PROBABILITIES  IN  THE  LIBRARY— HIS 
MODEST  VATICINATIONS* 

"Don't  aever  prophsey  onles  ye  know,"  says 
Hosea  Bigelow.  1  beg  to  call  attention  to  the 
that  this  means  "Don't  prophesy  at  all"— perhaps 
it  was  so  meant  by  the  shrewd  Hosea.  We  never  can 
know— and  yet  we  continue  to  prophesy.  The  best 
we  can  do,  of  course,  is  to  estimate  probabilities. 
Probabilities!  That  is  a  good  word.  They  have 
dropped  it  from  {he  weather  reports  and  call  their 
estimate  a  "forecast."  I  like  the  old  word  better. 
Let  us  see,  then,  what  some  of  the  probabilities  are 
in  library  work. 

"Everything  flows,"  said  the  Greek  philosopher. 
Nothing  in  the  world  is  stable;  change  is  tin'  oi 
of  the  day.  But  note  the  word  he  uses.  That  which 
tlows  is  in  a  state  of  orderly  change  in  a  definite  di- 
rection. Everything  progresses;  and  the  library  and 
its  work  are  being  borne  along  h,  the  general  cur- 
rent. Now  the  writers  on  hydro-dynamics,  who  are 
experts  on  blow,  tell  us  that  there  are  two  ways  of 
studying  a  current,  which  they  name  the  "historical" 
and  the  "statistical":  In  the  former  the  attention  is 
fixed  on  a  definite  particle  of  the  moving  fluid  whose 
change  of  velocity  and  direction  is  noted  as  it  j.;i 
along;  in  the  latter  a  definite  locality  of  the  stream 
is  selected  and  the  fluid's  changes  of  form  and  densi- 
ty at  that  particular  place  are  observed.  In  like 
manner  we  may  si  inly  the  library  movement  histori- 
cally or  we  can  select  a  definite  point  in  its  course 
the  present  time— and  note  the  conditions  ami  their 

l904Read  before  the  Penn3ylva"i^   Library  Club,    Philadelphia     !  I 


80  LIBBAKY    ESSAYS 

alteration.     The  latter  plan,  I  venture  to  think,  is 
the  more  favorable  one  for  the  would-be  prophet. 

Let  us,  then,  take  a  few  of  the  salient  features 
of  library  work  as  they  exist  to-day  and  inquire:  (1) 
What  is  the  present  situation  with  regard  to  each; 
(2)  Is  that  situation  changing;  and  whither  and  how 
fast;  (3)  Is  its  rate  of  change  altering,  and  (4)  are 
the  conditions  that  affect  it  and  its  alteration,  likely 
to  remain  as  they  are.  If  we  can  answer  all  these 
questions  we  can  at  least  make  an  attempt  at  es- 
timating the  probable  situation  at  a  given  future 
time.  We  must  bear  in  mind,  however,  that  in  the 
library  world,  as  elsewhere,  there  are  sudden  or 
abrupt  changes,  or  catastrophes,  and  that  these  gen- 
erally defy  prediction.  And  this  is  equally  true  of 
unexpected  aids  or  beneficient  influences.  The  libra- 
ry benefactions  of  Mr.  Carnegie  would  have  upset 
the  most  careful  and  logical  estimate  of  library  prog- 
ress made  twenty  years  ago. 

First  let  us  take  up  the  status  of  our  stock  in 
trade — our  supply  of  books.  President  Eliot  warned 
us  two  years  ago  that  our  books  are  piling  up  too 
fast.  His  warning  has  met  with  scant  heed  because 
experience  has  not  brought  it  home  to  most  of  us. 
Malthus  warned  us  long  ago  that  the  progress  of 
population  was  toward  overcrowding  the  world.  We 
laugh  at  him  because  there  is  still  plenty  of  room 
and  means  of  utilizing  it  unknown  in  his  time.  Yet 
population  increases,  and  it  will  overcrowd  the 
world  some  day  unless  something  occurs  to  prevent. 
In  like  manner  our  stock  of  books  increases  faster 
and  faster.  The  ordinary  American  public  library 
is  a  thing  of  yesterday;  small  wonder  that  it  does 
not  yet  begin  to  feel  plethoric.  Our  oldest  large  li- 
braries are  those  of  onr  universities,  and  Harvard's 
president  has  told  us  that  to  them  the  evil  day  is 


OLD     PROBABILITIES  81 

within  sight.  Librarians  have  not  received  with  fav- 
or President  Eliot's  plea  for  getting  us  out  of  our 
future  difficulty  but  this  is  neither  here  nor  there. 
To  judge  by  our  present  attitude  either  our  library 
buildings  must  increase  indefinitely  in  size  or  our 
stock  must  be  weeded  out.  It  must  be  remembered, 
however,  that  our  books  are  perishable,  and  are  grow- 
ing more  so.  I  do  not  regard  this  as  an  unmixed 
evil.  Rather  than  to  make  our  books  unwieldy  for 
the  purpose  of  preserving  them  we  prefer  to  make 
them  usable  and  to  rely  on  reprinting  for  their  per- 
petuation. Thus  what  is  not  wanted  will  pass  away. 
Perhaps  this  will  solve  our  problem  for  us.  But  in 
any  case  it  looks  as  if  the  future  library  building  and 
its  contents  were  to  be  greatly  larger  than  those  of 
to-day. 

What  are  to  be  the  style  and  arrangement  of  the 
future  library  building?  The  present  situation  can 
hardly  be  described  in  general  terms.  As  in  all 
building  operations,  there  is  a  strife  between  the 
architect,  representing  aesthetics,  and  the  adminis- 
trator, representing  utility.  At  present  the  architect 
seems  to  be  having  his  way  outside  and  the  librarian 
his  way  inside.  But  why  this  contest?  Is  it  not  the 
architect's  business  to  make  utility  more  beautiful 
but  not  less  useful?  And  should  not  the  adminis- 
trator wish  his  surroundings  to  please  the  eye?  Ap- 
parently the  two  are  drawing  a  little  closer  together 
of  late.  We  are  having  fewer  temples  of  art  that 
have  to  be  made  over  to  fit  them  for  use  as  libraries 
and  fewer  buildings  that  are  workable  but  offensive 
to  the  eye.  The  tendency  seems  to  be  toward  simple 
dignity,  although  we  certainly  have  some  surprising 
departures  from  it.  Probably  the  library  of  the  fu- 
ture will  be  a  simple  and  massive  structure  of  much 
greater  size  than  at    present,    with    its    decorations 


LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

largely  structural,  and  combining  ample  open-shelf 
and  reading  facilities  with  greatly  increased  capac- 
ity for  book-storage. 

There  is  one  particular  in  which  the  architect  has 
been  specially  out  of  touch  with  the  administrator. 
The  open-shelf  is  now  all  but  universal,  but  many 
architects  seem  not  to  have  heard  of  it.  Many  build- 
ings, actually  intended  for  administration  on  the 
free  access  system,  seem  yet  to  have  been  planned  as 
closed-shelf  libraries  and  opened  to  the  public  as  an 
afterthought.  A  library  without  a  special  stack- 
room  for  book-storage  is  an  unthinkable  thing  to 
most  architects.  And  yet  in  many  small  libraries 
book-storage  is  not  necessary,  and  in  most  branch  li- 
braries, where  only  books  in  general  use  are  to  be 
1  daced,  it  will  never  be  necessary.  To  get  the  maxi- 
mum advantage  from  open  shelves,  with  a  minimum 
of  risk,  the  books  should  be  placed  on  the  walls  as 
far  as  possible  and  such  book-cases  as  stand  on  the 
floor  should  be  as  low  as  an  ordinary  table,  so  as  to 
be  easily  overseen.  A  stack-room,  it  seems  to  me,  is 
distinctly  a  closed-shelf  arrangement.  I  believe  this 
is  coming  to  be  recognized  and  that  in  the  future  li- 
brary the  books  will  be  on  or  near  the  walls. 

But  how  about  the  open-shelf  system  itself?  At 
present  there  are  few  libraries  that  do  not  have  it 
in  some  form,  and  some  of  these  are  libraries  that 
continued  strongly  to  disapprove  of  it  even  after  it 
had  become  well  and  widely  established.  The  in- 
dications are  nearly  all  that  it  has  come  to  stay.  I 
say  nearly  all;  for  there  is  still  a  feeling  among 
many  people  that  it  is  not  good  administration  to 
abandon  so  large  a  percentage  of  our  books  to 
thieves.  In  libraries  in  small  communities  where 
the  loss  is  small,  this  question  does  not  arise;  but  in 
New  York,  for  instance,  where  we  lost  5000  books 
last  year,  it.  is  serious.     We  librarians  mav  sav  and 


OLD    PROBABILITY  - 

believe  that  the  advantages  far  outweigh  the  disad- 
vantages, hut  trustees  and  municipal  authorities  are 
hard  to  convince,  in  New  York  we  have  takeE  what 
many  will  consider  a  backward  step,  by  partially 
closing,  as  an  experiment,  the  shelves  of  two  of  our 
branches.  So  that  although  we  may  safely  say  that 
free  access  has  come  to  stay.  I  do  nor  look  to  see  it 
applied  very  generally  to  large  collections,  one 
thin-  seems  to  me  (deai-.  Library  administration  is 
becoming  increasingly  business-like,  and  it  is  not 
business-like  to  accepl  a  large  annua]  loss  without 
aB  attempt  to  minimize  i(.  We  must  ;it  least  inves- 
tigate regularly  and  rigidly  the  sources  and  charac- 
ter of  this  loss. 

As  for  the  other  features  that,  we  have  become  ac- 
customed  to  regard  as  distinguishing  the  new  libra- 
ry era  from  the  old— special  work  with  children,  co- 
operation with  schools,  travelling  libraries,  etc.  -i1 
is  evident  that  these,  too.  have  come  to  stay.  Their 
spheres  are  widening  and  their  aims  are  diversifying, 
however,  so  that  he  who  should  venture  to  predict 
their  precise  status  in  the  future  would  lie  rash. 

In  fact,  the  library  idea  itself  is  beginning  to  suf- 
fer a  sort  of  restless  change  that  is  quite  distinct 
from  its  orderly  progress.  The  activities  of  the  li- 
brary are  at    present  a  g 1  deal   like  those  of  the 

amoeba— stretching  out  a  tentacle  here,  withdrawing 
one  there;  improvising  a  mouth  and  then  turning  it 
into  a  stomach;  shifting  and  stretching  about;  some- 
what vague  and  formless,  yet  instinct  with  life,  ap- 
petite and  caution,  and  vitalized  with  at  least  the 
germ  ami  promise  of  intelligence.  Such  a  state  is 
an  unpromising  one  for  prophecy.  Is  this  or  that 
new  development  of  activity  the  beginning  of  an 
orderly  march  in  a  straight  line,  or  is  it  to  be  with- 
drawn or  reversed  to-morrow?  Is  our  work  with 
children  to  include  much   (hat   now    seems  t<.  belon<* 


84  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

to  the  kindergarten,  the  museum,  and  the  art  gal- 
lery 7      Arc   our    travelling   library   departments  to 
sell  books  in  the  future  as  well  as  lend  them?    Are 
we  to  deliver  books  free  at  our  user's  homes?     Are 
our  Boards  of  Education  to  turn  over  to  us  the  su- 
perintendence  of  all  such  work  as  deals  with  books 
and    their    use?      Many   questions   like   these   would 
have  been  answered  in  the  affirmative  yesterday  but 
in  the  negative  to-day.     I  might  be  inclined  to  say 
"yes"  to  some  of  them  now,  wThen  to-morrow  would 
prove  them  out  of  the  qeustion.     But  there  is  one 
assertion  that  we  can  make  boldly.     Whatever  the 
library  has  tried  to  do  or  to  be,  whether  success  or 
failure  has  attended  it,  it  has  never  ceased  to  be  a 
library — a  keeper  and  purveyor  of  books.    Whatever 
else  it  may  undertake,  we  may  be  sure  that  this  will 
continue  to  be  its  chief    reason    for    existence,    and 
that   its  other  activities,  if  such  there  be,  will  grow 
out  of  this  and  group  themselves  around  it.     Is  the 
library  to  grow  into  a  bookstore?     I  do  not  know, 
but  if  so  its  commercial  functions  are  likely  to  be 
subsidiary.     Certain  libraries  have  already  added  to 
their  duties  as  free  institutions  the  functions  of  pay- 
libraries,  and  the  commercial  feature  has  thus  been 
introduced.     It  seems  to  be  spreading,  and  it  may 
prove  an  entering  wedge  for  a  system  of  actual  sales 
to  supplement  that  of  paid  loans.    A  powerful  deter- 
rent, however,  will  be  the  influence  of  the  book-trade. 
Following  the  line  of  least  resistance,  the  activity 
of  the  library  as  an  aid  to  the  ownership  as  well  as 
the  reading  of  books  is  perhaps  more  likely  to  mani- 
fest itself  in  advice  than  in  actual  trade.     Some  li- 
braries are  now  making  special  effort  to  give  their 
readers   information    about    book-prices,    and    about 
places  and  methods  of  purchase;  and  it  seems  likely 
that  this  kind  of  aid,  since  it  can  arouse  no  opposi- 
tion, will  Lncre 


OLD    PBOBABILITJ     - 

The  position  in  which  we  find  ourselves,  of  op- 
position to  those  who  make  and  sell  books,  is  unfor- 
tunate. The  sit iint ion  has  been  growing  more  and 
more  tense  and  it  may  continue  so  to  grow,  perhaps 
up  to  the  point  where  nil  discount  will  he  withheld 
from  libraries  and  where  new  Legislation  may  dis- 
courage  importation,  but  !  do  not  believe  that  it  will 
keep  on  indefinitely.  No  one  who  Looks  into  the 
matter  closely  can  help  believing  that  in  the  Long 
run  libraries  advertise  the  book-trade  and  help  it  by 
promoting  general  interest  in  Literature.  This  view 
of  the  matter  was  taken  by  a  majority  of  tin'  New 
York  Booksellers'  League  at  a  recent  dinner  at 
which  the  question  was  discussed.  Even  purely  as 
a  matter  of  business,  the  library  deserves  special 
privileges  and  it  will  doubtless  continue  in  some 
measure  to  receive  them. 

It  does  not,  however,  seem  probable  that  the 
average  cost  of  books  to  a  public  library  will  ever  he 
as  low  again  as  it  Avas,  say.  ten  years  ago.  in  fact 
this  may  he  said  of  all  Library  expenses.  Salaries 
are  rising  and  ought  to  rise  higher;  our  buildings 
are  larger  and  finer  and  demand  more  expensive  care. 
We  are  heating  them  with  more  costly  apparatus 
and  lighting  them  with  electricity.  The  library  of 
the  future  will  doubtless  cost  more  to  maintain  in 
every  item  than  the  library  of  the  past— but  the  pub- 
lic will  receive  more  than   the  difference. 

As  regards  children's  work  there  seem  to  be  at 
present  two  tendencies— one  toward  complete  isola- 
tion and  one  in  the  opposite  direction.  Will  our 
grandchildren,  when  they  go  to  the  public  library, 
he  segregated  in  a  separate  room,  perhaps  in  a  sepa- 
rate building;  or  will  they  be  treated  as  a  distinct 
(dass  only  so  far  as  may  he  absolutely  necessarv  for 
good  administration?  Probably  complete  separation 
is  best  for  the  library  and  best   for  the  adults;   1   h,  si- 


86 


LIBRARY    ESSAYS 


tate  to  say  that  it  is  best  for  the  children.  After  all, 
childhood  is  but  a  stage  and  not  a  resting'  state  at 
that— rather  restless  and  progressive.  Any  special- 
conditions  that  we  provide  for  it  must  themselves 
be  subject  to  constant  change.  In  our  schools  the 
child  passes  from  grade  to  grade.  In  our  libraries 
the  grades  are  only  two;  let  us  not  make  the  leap 
from  one  to  the  other  too  great.  I  look  to  see  special 
library  work  for  children  increase  in  importance, 
but  with  due  recognition  of  the  fact  that  some  of  the 
needs  and  aspirations  of  a  "grown-up"  are  present 
in  many  a  twelve-year-old  and  that  it  is  better  that 
the  clothes  of  a  growing  child  should  be  a  size  too 
large  than  an  exact  tit. 

The  travelling  library   deserves  a   special  word, 
because  its  success  is  indicative  of  the  tendency  to 
bring  the  book  and  its  user  into  closer  contact.     In 
New    York   we   began,  only  seven  years  ago,   to  eir- 
culate  a  few  hundred    books    monthly    in    this    way 
among  half  a  dozen  schools.     Now  we  give  out  near- 
ly half  a  million  a  year  from    nearly    500    different 
points.     We  hear  the  same  tale  from  all  sides.     And 
the  cost  of  circulation  per  book  is  surprisingly  small. 
In    New   York  the  circulation  through  travelling  li- 
braries is  equal  to  that  of  three  branches  of  the  first 
class,   while  the  number    of    assistants    employed    is 
about  half  the    number    required    in    one    of    those 
branches.    The  cost  of  operating  three  large  branches 
in  Carnegie  buildings  is  about  $40,000  yearly,  where- 
as our  travelling  libraries   for   the   last   fiscal   year 
cost  us  but  |6400.    Of  course  it  must  be  remembered 
that  a  very  large  amount  of  the  work  of  circulation 
in  this  case  is  done  by  volunteer  assistants  and  that 
the  users  of  the  books  have  not  the  facilities  and  re- 
sources of  a  branch   library — the  number  and  vari- 
ety of  books,  the  pleasant  surroundings,  the  trained 
aid.    Of  course  the  travelling  library  can  never  take 


OLD    PEOBABILITIES  87 

tlie  place  of  the  fully  equipped  branch,  but  in  supple- 
menting branch  work  and  i„  reaching  thus,-  who 
Live  m  sparsely  settled  communities  its  capabilities 
are  great  and  it  may  be  expected  that  its  use  will  in- 
crease. 

The  broadening  of  library    work    illustrated    by 
tin'  successive  appearance  of  the  reference   Library 
the    circulating    library,    the    delivery    station,    the 
branch    and    the    travelling     library     suggests     the 
thought  that  this  scries  may   be  carried  further  in 
the  future  by  the  addition    of    some    working    plan 
that  will  brin-  the  book  still  closer  to  its  user.    Such 
>[  plan  would  be  the  system  in   which  books  are  de- 
livered free  of  charge  at  the  bouses  of  those  who  use 
them,  or  the  provision  of  a  real  library  on  wheels— 
a  van  supplied  with  shelving  lor  a  thousand  books  or 
more  from  which  selection  can  be  made  as  it   moves 
about  from  house  to  house.     It  does  not   semi  prob- 
able that  any  such  device  as  this  will   be  generally 
adopted  for  districts  adequately  provided   with   reg- 
ular libraries,  but  for   thinly    settled    regions    they 
may  supplement  or  take  the    place    of    our    present 
travelling  or  home  libraries.     I  believe  for  instance 
that  a  moving  library  of  1000  books,  calling  once  a 
week  at  each   house  in  a   farming  district   would    be 
preferable  to  four  travelling  Libraries  of  250  books 
each,  stationed  at  points    in    the    same    district,    al- 
though, of  course,  the  cost  would  be  correspondingly 
greater. 

The  library's  status  as  an  educational  institution 
seems  now  to  be  well  established.  No  one  disputes 
it.  and  as  this  appears  to  be  the  chief  ground  on 
Which  its  support  by  public  funds  is  justified  we 
may  regard  it  as  settled  that  the  library  is  to  con- 
tinue to  play  its  part  in  public  instruction.  This 
parr,  though  not  so  definite  ;uu\  positive  as  that  of 
the  school,  extends  over  a  far  longer  period.     While 


88  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

the  library's  work  is  parallel  and  supplementary  to 
that  of  the  school  in  the  case  of  those  of  school  age, 
it  must  continue  its  work  alone  after  its  users  have 
left  school.  Here  it  may  settle  its  methods  for  itself, 
but  in  its  earlier  work  when  it  deals  with  pupils,  it 
has  the  teacher  to  reckon  with.  The  necessity  for 
constant  consultation  and  co-operation  between  the 
authorities  of  two  public  institutions,  whose  work  is 
so  similar  and  can  so  easily  result  in  wasteful  du- 
plication or  still  more  wasteful  conflict,  is  obvious. 
We  need  not  be  surprised  that  librairans  and  teach- 
ers are  getting  nearer  together  and  we  may  confi- 
dently predict  that  the  rapprochement  will  be  closer 
in  the  future.  But  although  the  school  is  ceasing  to 
look  upon  its  younger  sister  as  an  interloper  in  the 
pedagogical  family,  there  is  still  plenty  of  room  for 
the  definition  of  their  respective  spheres.  And  we 
have  no  right  to  complain  that  the  school  is  still  do- 
ing much  library  work,  when  we  have  ourselves 
sometimes  tried  to  do  school  work.  I  look  in  the  fu- 
ture for  the  definition  of  two  clearly  separated 
spheres  of  activity,  one  filled  by  the  library  and  the 
other  by  the  school,  and  for  the  closest  co-operation 
between  the  two  that  is  consistent  with  confining 
each  to  its  own  work.  It  is  probably  too  much  to  ex- 
pect that  the  school  will  give  up  the  custodianship 
of  books.  It  must  at  least  control  its  own  text 
books,  and  its  collection  of  reference  works  should 
be  complete  enough  to  constitute  a  thorough  guide 
and  aid  to  proper  study.  But  the  distribution  of 
supplementary  reading  should  be  the  part  of  the  pub- 
lic library.  This  and  other  related  points  are  to  be 
settled,  if  at  all,  in  the  future  by  two  kinds  of  mutual 
understandings;  namely,  between  the  governing 
boards  of  library  and  school  and  between  librarian 
and  teacher.  The  due  definition  of  spheres  of  work 
can  come  only  from  an  official  agreement  between 


OLD     PROBABILITIES  89 

library  board  and  school  board;  helpful  aid  on  both 
sides  can  come  only  from  an  official  agreement  be- 
tween library  board  and  school  board;  helpful  aid 
on  both  sides  can  come  only  from  personal  contact 
and  acquaintance  between  teachers  and  library  as- 
sistants— such  a  degree  of  acquaintance  between 
teachers  and  library  assistants — such  a  degree  of  ac- 
quaintance that  each  comes  to  have  a  practical 
knowledge  of  the  other's  problems,  trials  and  limita- 
tions. Most  librarians  have  made  more  or  less  ef- 
fort in  this  direction;  some  have  met  with  dis- 
tinguished success.  We  may  safely  predict  further 
progress  along  this  line. 

The  lessons  of  the  past  and  of  the  present  all 
point  to  the  increasing  use  of  the  library  as  a  great 
engine  of  popular  education,  using  the  noun  in  its 
broadest  sense  and  emphasizing  the  adjective.  The 
library  is  more  and  more  a  great  humanizing  influ- 
ence; if  this  is  so,  nothing  human  must  be  alien  to 
it.  And  much  that  is  human  and  humanizing  is 
nevertheless  ephemeral.  With  some  the  implications 
of  this  word  are  wholly  contemptuous.  Of  a  day! 
Does  nothing  valuable  pass  quickly  away,  having 
done  its  little  work?  The  day  itself  is  a  day  only 
and  vanishes  with  the  evening  and  the  morning;  yet 
it  has  its  part  in  the  record  of  the  years.  So-  with 
"ephemeral"  literature.  As  we  have  seen,  a  great 
deal  of  what  we  are  wont  to  consider  as  standard 
and  permanent  will  ultimately  perish.  Yet  be  its 
life  that  of  a  year  or  a  century,  a  book  may  play  its 
little  part  in  the  mental  development  of  those  who 
read  it.  Just  at  present  the  favorite  vehicle  of  liter- 
ary expression  is  fiction.  People  put  into  stories 
what  they  have  to  say  of  history,  sociology  and 
ethics;  they  embody  in  romance  their  theories  of 
aesthetics,  economics  and  politics.  Then4  is  good 
doctrine  with  a  poor  literary  setting  and  there  are 


90 


LIBRARY    ESSAYS 


paste  jewels  in  pure  gold.  But  taking  it  by  and 
large  the  much  decried  deluge  of  modern  fiction  has 
undoubtedly  been  educative  in  its  tendency.  This  is 
why  1  cannot  yield  to  Logic  and  predict  the  gradual 
disappearance  of  all  but  a  small  residuum  of  fiction 
from  the  public  library.  There  is  a  tendency  in  that 
direction  but  there  are  some  signs  of  a  reaction.  The 
seer  may  hope,  even  if  he  dare  not  predict,  that  the 
great  public  library  that  can  afford  to  do  so  will 
continue  to  purchase  such  fiction  as  will  interest  or 
entertain  the  average  person  of  education,  even  if  it 
is  to  stay  on  the  shelves  but  a  few  months. 

What  will  be  the  future  distribution  of  libraries 
in  this  country?  At  present  their  numbers  are  large 
in  the  northern  states  and  comparatively  small  in 
the  southern.  Growth  has  been  unexampled  in  its 
rapidity  and  has  been  stimulated  by  large  benefac- 
tions. So  far  as  this  growth  may  be  looked  upon  as 
the  direct  result  of  Mr.  Carnegie's  gifts  it  may 
doubtless  be  regarded  as  abnormal,  although  it 
should  be  noted  that  every  Carnegie  building  means 
a  present  and  future  outlay  on  the  part  of  the  com- 
munity in  which  it  stands,  of  many  times  the  amount 
given  by  the  donor.  Primarily,  library  expansion  is 
the  result  of  a  popular  conviction  that  the  public  li- 
brary is  a  public  necessity.  Expansion  has  pro- 
ceeded in  proportion  to  the  spread  of  that  convic- 
tion and  along  the  lines  of  its  progress.  If  there 
are  fewer  public  libraries  in  the  South  than  in  the 
North  it  is  because  the  need  for  them  is  not  felt 
there,  even  if  it  exists.  Doubtless  the  race  problem 
is  a  powerful  inhibitory  influence.  Two  things  are 
certain;  that  library  expansion  is  to  go  on  for  some 
time,  and  that  a  time  will  come  when  it  must  stop. 
When  that  time  arrives,  the  library  will  have  at- 
tained its  majority  and  we  shall  have  an  opportunity 


OLD     PROBABILITIES  91 

to  address  ourselves  to  problems  that  can  not  be  at- 
tended to  during  our  period  of  growth. 

Who  will  use  our  great  library  of  the  future? 
Who  uses  the  library  of  to-day?  I  have  been  asked 
that  question  by  reporters  and  have  been  puzzled  to 
answer  it.  For  whose  use  is  the  public  library  in- 
tended? It  will  be  logical  to  answer  "the  Public,  of 
course,"  but  there  are  a  great  many  poeple  who  will 
give  this  answer  with  mental  reservations.  With 
them  "the  Public"  means  some  particular  pari  of 
the  public.  Some  think  that  the  libraries  are  for  the 
poor,  or  at  any  rate  for  those  who  cannot  afford  to 
buy  books  for  themselves.  This  is  a  survival  of  the 
origin  of  some  of  our  circulating  libraries,  which 
were  originally  charities.  But  a  public  foundation 
and  a  charitable  foundation  are  two  different  things. 
Our  parks  are  free,  yet  we  do  not  object  to  their 
free  use  by  the  wealthy,  nor  do  the  wealthy  classes 
themselves  seem  to  shrink  from  it.  Some  again 
would  limit  the  use  of  a  library  to  students,  or  at  all 
events  to  those  who  do  not  care  to  withdraw  books 
for  home  use.  These  are  people  who  do  not  believe 
in  the  circulating  library — and  there  are  still  such. 
Others  again  would  have  the  public  library  cater 
only  to  those  of  educated  literary  taste.  For  these 
reasons  and  for  others  it  is  a  fact  that  our  public  li- 
braries, even  those  with  the  largest  circulations,  are 
not  used  by  the  entire  public.  Probably,  however, 
they  are  being  used  more  and  more  freely.  In  a  li- 
brary that  uses  the  two-book  system  it  is  impossible 
to  tell  exactly  from  statistics,  how  many  persons  are 
drawing  from  the  library  at  one  time.  Assuming, 
however,  that  the  number  is  proportional  to  the  num- 
ber of  books  outstanding,  we  find  in  the  New  York 
Public  Library  that  it  has  been  increasing  a  little 
faster  of  late  years  than  the  circulation.      In   other 


92  L1BKAKY    ESSAYS 

words,  individual  reading  has  not  increased,  and  the 
great  recent  increase  of  circulation  in  our  library 
and  presumably  in  others  also,  is  due  to  an  increase 
of  readers.  The  size  of  the  library's  public  is  there- 
fore increasing  and  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose 
that  it  will  not  continue  to  do  so.  Of  course  there 
must  be  a  limit.  For  instance,  certain  sections  of 
the  public  will  not  use  a  library— as  they  will  not 
use  a  school — in  conjunction  with  other  sections. 
This  may  be  because  of  social  or  racial  feeling,  or 
personal  uncleanliness  or  offensiveness,  even  when 
the  latter  is  not  carried  to  the  point  where  the  li- 
brarian can  properly  object  to  it.  In  such  cases  the 
lower  element  will  drive  out  the  higher.  The  remedy 
seems  to  be  sought  in  segregation.  This  may  be 
either  open  and  acknowledged  as  in  those  southern 
cities  where  the  library  has  a  separate  department 
for  colored  people,  or  it  may  be  virtual,  as  where  a 
convenient  lounging  room  with  newspapers  is  pro- 
vided for  the  tramp  element,  sometimes  with  the 
privilege  of  smoking.  In  large  cities  the  branch  li- 
brary system  acts  in  the  same  way.  The  character  of 
the  card-holders  is  determined  by  that  of  the  sur- 
rounding district  and  we  thus  get  practically  sepa- 
rate libraries  for  separate  sections  of  the  community. 
I  look  to  see  this  separation  proceed  to  a  somewhat 
greater  degree,  not  perhaps  systematically  but  auto- 
matically and  almost  involuntarily.  In  spite  of  the 
apparent  concession  to  class  feeling,  it  will  certainly 
increase  the  aggregate  use  of  the  library  and  thus 
make  it  more  truly  a  public  institution.  So  far  as 
the  branch  system  is  concerned,  of  course,  this  is 
only  one  of  the  ways  in  which  it  increases  the  size 
of  the  library's  public.  Even  in  a  section  where  the 
population  is  perfectly  homogeneous,  more  people 
will  always  be  served  by  two  libraries  than  by  one. 
The  number  of  branch  library  systems  is  rapidly  in- 


OLD     PROBABILITIES  93 

creasing  and  the  prospects  are  that  the  greatest  pos- 
sible use  is  to  be  made  of  them  in  the  future.  And 
they  will  be  made  up  of  true  branches.  Delivery 
stations  have  their  uses,  but  they  can  never  take  the 
place  of  buildings  with  permanent  stocks  of  books 
and  all  the  conveniences  of  a  separate  library.  Where 
a  branch  building  is  also  a  delivery  station,  as  it  al- 
ways should  be,  that  is,  where  the  users  of  a  branch 
are  allowed  to  draw  on  the  stock  of  the  Central  Li- 
brary or  of  the  other  branches,  it  is  found  that  the 
branch  use  vastly  exceeds  the  station  use.  In  our 
own  library  a  branch  that  circulates  500  to  1000  of 
its  own  books  daily  will  give  out  only  two  or  three 
from  other  branches.  This  is  sufficiently  indicative 
of  the  preferences  of  the  public,  and  in  a  matter  of 
this  kind  public  preference  will  ultimately  govern. 
These  branch  libraries  will  have  limited  stocks  of 
books,  mostly,  though  not  entirely,  on  open  shelves, 
and  w7ill  include  small  reference  collections  which 
will  be  more  important  as  the  branch  is  farther  re- 
moved from  the  central  library.  These  predictions, 
it  seems  to  me,  are  all  warranted  by  present  tenden- 
cies. 

How  will  the  future  library  be  governed  and  ad- 
ministered? The  governing  body  at  present  is  al- 
most universally  a  board  of  trustees  who  are  men  of 
standing  and  responsibility  but  usually  without  ex- 
pert knowledge.  These  are  sometimes  semi-inde- 
pendent and  sometimes  under  the  direct  control  of 
their  municipal  government.  The  present  tendency 
seems  to  be  to  minimize  municipal  control  but  to  in- 
crease the  number  of  governing  bodies  subject  to  it. 
In  other  words  private  libraries  are  doing  more  pub- 
lic work  than  formerly  under  contract  with  munici- 
palities, becoming  thereby  subject  to  the  control  of 
the  city  or  town  but  not  so  closely  as  to  bring  poli- 
tics  into  the  management.     This  state  of  things  is 


94  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

so  desirable  that  we  may  expect  it  to  be  multiplied 
in  the  future.  As  regards  the  lay  or  iuexpert  char- 
acter of  the  governing'  board,  though  it  is  looked  up- 
on by  some  as  objectionable,  it  is  shared  by  the  libra- 
ry with  greal  numbers  of  other  public  and  semi-pub- 
lic institutions.  Such  a  board  may  be  regarded  as 
representative  of  the  great  lay  public,  on  whose  be- 
half the  institution  must  be  operated,  and  whose 
members  are  interested  in  results  rather  than  in  the 
special  methods  by  which  these  results  may  be  ob- 
tained. That  the  members  of  such  a  board  should 
be  mere  figure-heads  is  certainly  not  to  be  desired; 
that  they  should,  either  as  individuals  or  collective- 
ly, take  part  in  the  details  of  administration  is 
equally  undesirable.  There  are  boards  that  are  do- 
ing the  one  or  the  other  of  these  things,  but  the  ten- 
dency is  to  lean  neither  in  the  direction  of  laxity  nor 
of  undue  interference — to  require  definite  results 
and  to  hold  the  librarian  strictly  responsible  for  the 
attainment  of  those  results,  leaving  him  to  employ 
his  own  methods. 

And  the  librarian  of  the  future;  who  and 
what  will  he  be?  The  difference  between  the 
modern  librarian  and  him  of  the  old  school  has 
often  been  the  subject  of  comment.  The  librarian 
nowadays  is  less  the  scholar  and  more  the  man  of 
affairs.  Is  change  to  go  on  in  this  direction?  There 
are  rather,  it  seems  to  me,  signs  of  a  reaction.  Per- 
haps reaction  is  hardly  the  word.  The  librarian, 
while  keeping  in  touch  with  the  times,  is  reaching 
hack  for  a  little  of  the  spirit  of  the  old-time  custo- 
dian and  incorporating  it  with  his  own.  Is  it  too 
much  to  hope  that  the  heads  of  our  future  libraries, 
will  keep  in  the  forefront  of  library  progress,  alert 
to  appreciate  the  popular  need  and  to  respond  to  it, 
may  yet  have  something  of  the  sweet  and  gentle 
spirit  of  the  old  scholars  who  used  to  preside  over 
our  storehouses  of  books? 


OLD    PROBABILITY  1>  95 

Who  are  to  be  the  assistants  in  om-  library  of  the 
future?  At  present  our  staffs  are  recruited  from  the 
following  sources: 

(1)  The  library  schools.  The  best  of  these  have 
supplied  chiefly  the  heads  of  the  smaller  libraries, 
and  heads  of  departments  or  assistants  of  the  higher 
grades  in  the  larger  libraries.  Few  heads  of  the 
large  libraries  are  school-graduates  and  few  lower- 
grade  assistants.  There  are,  however,  schools  of  the 
second  class  whose  graduates  have  -one  into  the 
lower  grades  both   in  small  and  large  institutions. 

(2)  Apprentice  classes,  generally  formed  to  in- 
struct untrained  persons  in  the  work  of  a  particular 
library,  so  that  those  who  enter  its  lower  grades  may 
be  at  least  partially  fitted  for  their  work.  The  best 
of  these  rise  by  promotion  to  the  upper  grades. 

(3)  Appointment  of  totally  untrained  persons. 
If  such  persons  are  thoroughly  well  educated  they 
may  enter  the  work  in  the  higher  grades  or  even  as 
the  heads  of  libraries.  If  not  they  generally  enter 
at  the  bottom,  although  of  course  some  obtain  high- 
er positions  through  political  or  local   influence. 

This,  I  believe,  srates  the  situation  fairly.  What 
are  the  tendencies?  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the 
library  school  is  growing  in  favor.  The  increasing 
numbers  of  those  who  apply  for  sehool  courses,  the 
raising  of  requirements,  both  for  entrance  am!  for 
graduation,  the  second  class  schools  that  have 
sprung  up  in  limitation  of  those  of  higher  made, 
making  necessary  the  appointment  of  committees  by 
various  library  bodies  to  examine  and  report  on 
them — all  point  in  this  direction.  At  the  same  time 
we  have  had  numerous  instances,  of  late,  of  the  se- 
lection of  non-graduates  to  till  high  library  positions 
and  at  least  one  instance  of  frank  statement  on  the 
part  of  a  librarian  of  acknowledged  eminence,  in 
favor  of  taking  college  men  of  ability  info  the  libra- 


96  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

iv  immediately  on  graduation,  instead  of  putting 
them  through  a  library  school.  The  library  schools 
aim,  and  very  properly  so,  at  occupying  the  same 
position  toward  the  library  profession  that  the  medi- 
i  at  and  law  schools  do  toward  the  medical  and  legal 
professions.     Statistics  show  that  they  have  not  yet 

■hed  that  position.  Still,  it  is  probable  that  they 
will  continue  to  approximate  to  it  as  a  limit.  In  the 
future,  more  and  more  of  the  higher  library  posi- 
tions will  doubtless  be  filled  by  library-school  gradu- 
ates— and  so  also  will  more  of  the  lower  positions. 
When  the  demand  for  assistants  in  the  higher  grades 
begins  to  slacken,  proportionately  to  the  supply,  as 
it  is  sure  to  do  some  day,  the  library  school  gradu- 
ates will  be  willing  to  enter  the  library  force  in  the 
lower  grade,  and  will  thus  crowd  out  the  untrained 
or  partially  trained  applicants  to  some  extent.  They 
may  even  make  the  apprentice  class  a  superfluity,  in 
which  case  I  am  sure  librarians  will  abandon  it 
without  a  sigh. 

In  these  somewhat  desultory  forecasts  the  object 
of  the  prophet  has  been  not  so  much  to  impress  up- 
on others  his  own  beliefs  as  to  stimulate  a  taste  for 
prophecy — a  desire  to  glance  over  the  rail  and  see 
Which  way  the  current  is  setting.  Without  being 
fatalists,  we  may  hold  that  there  are  certain  great 
tendencies  in  human  affairs,  vast  social  currents, 
against  which  it  is  well-nigh  hopeless  to  struggle. 
Those  who  desire  to  accomplish  results  must  work 
with  these  currents,  not  against  them.  Success  has 
almost  always  been  won  in  this  way.  Even  when  a 
few  bold  spirits  have  seemed  to  stem  and  turn  back 
the  whole  tide,  it  will  generally  be  found  that  an  un- 
seen undercurrent  was  in  their  favor.  Learn  there- 
fore to  judge  of  the  currents;  so  shall  we  avoid  the 
rocks  and  shoals  and  bring  our  craft  safely  to  port. 


THE  LOVE  OF  BOOKS  AS  A  BASIS  FOR 
LIBRARIANSHIP* 

Is  the  love  of  books  a  proper  or  necessary  qualifi- 
cation for  one  who  is  to  care  for  books  and  to  see 
that  they  do  the  work  for  which  they  were  made? 
First,  let  ns  ask  a  question  or  two.  What  is  the 
love  of  books;  and  whal  is  there  in  books  that  one 
may  love?  The  same  question  might  be  asked  and 
answered  of  the  love  of  human  beings;  for  between 
it  and  the  love  of  books  there  are  curious  analogies. 
Of  what,  then,  do  man  and  book  severally  consist  as 
objects  of  interest  and  affection? 

First  of  all  there  is  the  man  himself,  the  ego, 
the  soul — which  cannot  indeed  exist  on  this  earth 
without  its  material  embodiment,  but  which  most  of 
us  realize  is  in  some  way  distinct  from  that  embodi- 
ment. So  the  book  has  its  soul.  The  ideas  or  facts 
that  it  sets  forth,  though  dependent  for  their  influ- 
ence on  the  printed  page,  exist  independently  of  that 
page  and  make  the  book  what  it.  is.  Next  we  have  the 
material  embodiment;  that  without  which  the  man 
or  the  book  could  not  exist  for  us;  which  is  a  neces- 
sary part  of  him  or  it,  but  necessary  only  because  it 
is  the  vehicle  through  which  man  or  book  may  be 
known  by  the  senses.  The  body  of  the  book  is  thus 
so  much,  and  only  so  much,  of  its  material  part,  its 
paper  and  its  ink,  as  is  necessary  to  present  the  con- 
tents properly  to  the  eye.  Lastly,  we  have  the  cloth- 
ing of  man  and  of  book,  having  the  function  of  pro- 
tection or  of  decoration,  or  both;  in  the  case  of  the 

♦Read    before    the    New   York    State   Library    Association,    Twilight 
Park,   September,   1906. 


98  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

book  the  protective  cover,  often  highly  decorated, 
and  so  much  of  interior  elaboration  as  cannot  be  said 
to  be  strictly  necessary  to  the  presentation  of  the 
idea.  The  "body"  and  the  clothing  of  the  book,  let 
it  be  noted,  are  not  strictly  separable  as  are  those  of 
the  man.  The  line  between  them  may  be  drawn  in 
different  places  by  different  people.  The  same  illus- 
tration, we  will  say,  may  be  considered  by  one  read- 
er ;m  absolutely  necessary  part  of  the  book — an  or- 
gan of  its  body — while  to  another  it  is  but  an  orna- 
mental embellishment — a  decorative  gewgaw.  In 
spite  of  this  vagueness,  however,  there  is  here  an  un- 
deniable distinction  between  those  material  parts  of 
the  book  that  are  necessary  to  its  existence  and  those 
that  merely  embellish  it  or  protect  it. 

The  book  therefore,  like  the  man,  is  made  up  of 
soul,  body  and  clothes.  Which  of  these  is  the  entity 
that  may  be  loved?  Now  there  are  many  kinds  of 
lovers  and  many  kinds  of  love.  The  belle  of  the  ball 
may  be  surrounded  with  admirers,  but  if  clad  in  rags 
and  seated  in  a  gutter  she  might  excite  no  favorable 
notice.  Still  more  may  a  pretty  face  be  loved  when 
it  has  no  mental  or  spiritual  qualities  behind  it. 
Yet  these  types  of  affection  are  inferior — no  one 
would  deny  it.  In  like  manner  those  who  love  the 
book  merely  for  its  fine  clothes,  who  rejoice  in  lux- 
urious binding  and  artistic  illumination,  and  even 
those  who  dwell  chiefly  on  its  fine  paper  and  careful 
typography,  are  but  inferior  lovers  of  books.  The 
one  loves  his  book  for  its  clothes,  and  the  other  for 
its  bodily  perfection;  neither  cares  primarily  for  its 
contents,  its  soul. 

Now  the  true  lover  is  he  who  loves  the  soul — 
who  sees  beyond  clothes  and  bodily  attributes,  and 
cherishes  nobility  of  character,  strength  of  intellect, 
loftiness  of  purpose,  sweetness  of  disposition,  stead- 


THE    LOVE    OF    BOOKS  99 

fastness  of  attachment— those  thousand  qualities 
that  go  to  make  up  personality.  All  these  the  Look 
has,  like  the  man  or  the  woman-  for  is  it  not  the 
essence  of  its  writer?  Your  true  book-lover  would 
rather  have  a  little  old  dog's-eared  copy  of  his  favor- 
ite author,  soiled  ami  torn  l>y  use.  with  binding  gone, 
and  printed  on  bad  paper  with  poorer  typo  and 
worse  ink,  than  a  mediocre  production  that  is  a  typo- 
graphic and  artistic  masterpiece. 

And  yet  we  call  the  collector  of  fine  bindings  and 

ran-  editions  a  "book-lover,"  to  t! xclusion  of  the 

one  who  loves  truly  and  devotedly.  The  true  book- 
lover  wants  to  get  at  the  soul  of  his  book;  the  false 
one  may  never  see  it.  He  may  even  refrain  from  cut- 
tin-  the  leaves  of  the  rare  first  edition  that  he  has 
just  bought,  in  doing  which  he  is  like  the  ignorant 
mother  who  sews  her  child  np  in  his  clothes  for  the 
winter— nay,  worse;  for  you  cannot  sew  up  the 
child's  soul. 

Now  let  there  he  no  misunderstanding.  As  the 
true  lover  would  have  his  unstress  beautiful— nay. 
as  she  is  beautiful  to  his  eyes,  whatever  she  may  be 
to  others,  and  as  he  would,  if  he  could,  clothe  her 
in  silks  and  adorn  her  with  gems,  so  the  true  book- 
lover  need  not  be  and  is  not  adverse  to  having  his 
favorite  author  sumptuously  set  forth;  he  would  rath- 
er than  not  see  his  books  properly  and  strongly  print- 
ed and  hound;  his  love  for  the  soul  need  not  interfere 
with  proper  regard  for  the  body  and  its  raiment. 
And  here  is  where  the  love  of  the  book  has  an  advan- 
tage over  the  affection  whose  object  is  a  person.  In 
spite  of  the  advertisements  of  the  beauty  doctors,  a 
homely  face  can  rarely  be  made  beautiful;  but  the 
book  may  be  embodied  and  clothed  as  we  will;  it  is 
the  same,  however  printed  and  bound,  to  him  who 
loves  it  for  its  contents. 


100  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  when  I  speak  in  general 
of  "a  love  of  books''  I  mean  not  a  love  of  their  typog- 
raphy, their  illustration,  or  their  bindings,  but  of 
their  contents;  a  love  of  the  universal  mind  of  hu- 
manity as  enshrined  in  print;  a  love  of  the  method  of 
recording  ideas  in  written  speech,  as  contrasted  with 
their  presentation  in  the  spoken  tongue — a  love  of 
ideas  and  ideals  as  so  recorded.  Such  a  love  of  books 
is  pre-eminently  a  characteristic  of  civilized  man.  It 
is  not  synonymous  with  a  love  of  knowledge — the 
savage  who  never  saw  a  book  may  have  that;  it  is  not 
even  the  same  as  a  love  of  recorded  knowledge,  for 
knowledge  may  be  recorded  in  other  ways — in  the 
brain  by  oral  repetition,  in  sculptured  memorials, 
in  mere  piles  of  stone.  It  is  a  love  of  the  ideas  of 
men  recorded  in  a  particular  way,  in  the  particular 
way  that  has  commended  itself  to  civilized  man  as 
best. 

The  very  existence  of  a  library  presupposes  such 
a  love  of  books.  No  one  who  had  not  an  affection 
for  the  printed  records  of  his  race  would  care  to  pos- 
sess them,  much  less  to  collect  and  preserve  them. 
It  would  seem,  then,  that  a  love  of  books  should  be 
not  only  a  qualification  but  an  absolute  prerequisite 
for  entrance  upon  librarianship.  By  inquiring  how 
and  why  it  has  come  to  be  regarded  as  a  non-essen- 
tial or  as  of  secondary  importance,  Ave  may  perhaps 
learn  something. 

A  young  woman  comes  to  me  to  ask  for  library 
work;  and  when  I  demand  sternly,  "Have  you  train- 
ing or  experience?"  she  timidly  answers,  "No;  but 
I'm  very  fond  of  books."  I  smile;  you  all  smile  in 
like  case.  Why  do  we  smile?  What  business  have 
we  to  underrate  such  a  fundamental  qualification 
and  exalt  above  it  mere  technicalities?  The  ability 
to  acquire  these  technicalities  exists  in  ten  persons 


THE    LOVE    OF    BOOKS  U)L 

where  the  ability  to  love  books  as  they  should  l>c 
loved  is  found  in  one.  If  the  love  so  avowed  is  real, 
even  if  it  is  only  potential,  not  actual,  our  feeling  in 
its  presence  should  be  one  of  reverence,  not  amuse- 
ment. It  should  prove  the  candidate  fit,  perhaps  not 
for  immediate  appointment,  but  for  preliminary 
training  with  a  view  to  appointment  in  the  future. 

If  it  is  real!    Candor  compels  me  to  confess  that, 
like  some  other  avowals  of  love,   that  of  a  love  for 
books  does  not  always  ring  true.     "What  have  you 
read?"      I   once  asked  one  of  these  self-styled   book- 
lovers.     She  fixed  me  with  her  eye  and  after  a  mo- 
ment's impressive  pause  she  replied  "Dee])  thought!" 
I  mentally  marked  her  as  a  false  lover.     Proud  par- 
ents relate  how    their    progeny    in    childhood    would 
rather  peruse  E.  S.  Ellis  than  play  and  pore  over  Al- 
ger than  eat — this  as  irrefragable  proof  of  fitness  for 
a  library  career.     Consideration  of  cases  like  these 
makes  us  wonder  whether  the  smile  is  so  much  out 
of  the  way  after  all.    Does  the  true  book-lover  public- 
ly   announce'    her    affection    in    the    hope    of    gain? 
Does  she  not  rather,  like  Shakespeare's  maid,  "never 
tell  her  love?"     It  is  to  be  feared  that  some  of  these 
people  are  confusing  a  love  of  books  with  a  love  of 
reading.     They  are  not  the  same  thing.     Some  per- 
sons enjoy  the  gentle  mental  exercise    of    letting    a 
stream  of  more  or  less  harmless  ideas  flow  through 
their  brains — continuously  in  and  continuously  out 
again — apprehending  them  one  after  another  in  lazy 
fashion,  and  then  dismissing  them.     The  result  is  a 
degree  of  mental  friction,  but  no  permanent  intellec- 
tual acquisition.     How  much  of  our  own  reading  is 
of  this  kind  I  shudder  to  contemplate.      Ear    be    it 
from  me  to  condemn  it;  it  has  its  uses;  it  is  an  ex- 
cellent cure  for  wakefulness  after  a   busy  day;  but 
it  no  more  indicates  or  stimulates  a  love  for  books 


102  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

than  shaking  hands  with  a  thousand  callers  makes 
it  possible  for  the  Governor  or  the  President  to 
claim  them  all  as  intimate  friends. 

A  real  love  for  books,  after  all,  is  betrayed  ra- 
ther than  announced;  it  shows  itself  in  the  chance 
remark,  the  careless  action,  just  as  another  kind  of 
love  may  show  itself  in  a  glance  or  a  word. 

1  believe  this  to  lie  the  reason  why  a  love  for 
books  is  so  little  considered  among  the  modern  quali- 
fications of  librarianship ;  it  appears  in  acts,  not  in 
words;  it  cannot  be  ascertained  by  asking  questions. 
He  who  protests  that  he  has  it  must  needs  be  an  ob- 
ject of  suspicion.  And  yet  I  venture  to  say  that  if 
any  librarian  has  made  a  conspicuous  success  of  his 
work,  apart  from  the  mere  mechanics  of  it,  he  has 
achieved  that  success  primarily  and  notably  through 
love  of  books.  This  I  assert  to  be  the  case  down  to 
the  assistant  of  lowest  grade. 

To  be  good,  work  must  be  ungrudging.  And 
though  other  things  than  love  for  one's  task  may 
make  one  willing  to  do  it  and  able  to  do  it  well,  in- 
telligent interest  is  always  a  prime  factor  in  secur- 
ing the  best  results. 

And  love  of  one's  work  becomes  a  very  simple  mat- 
ter when  there  is  love  of  the  subject  matter  of  that 
work.  Those  who  lament  that  they  are  doomed  to 
drudgery  should  remember  that  drudgery  is  subjec- 
tive. All  work  consists  of  a  series  of  acts  which  taken 
apart  from  their  relationships  are  unimportant  and 
uninteresting,  but  which  acquire  importance  and  in- 
terest from  those  relationships.  It  is  so  also  with 
sports.  Think  how  childish  are  the  mere  acts  of 
striking  a  ball  with  a  racket  or  of  kicking  an  inflated 
leather  sphere  over  a  cross-bar!  Yet  in  their  proper 
sequence  with  other  acts  they  may  be  the  object  of 
the  breathless  interest  or    enthusiasm    of    thousands 


THE   LOVE   OF    ROOKS  103 

of  spectators.     And  if  this  may  be  the  case  with  a 
mere  game,  how  much  more  so  with  an  occupation 
that  is  part  of  the  world's  life!     To  dip  a  brush  in 
color  and  draw  it  across  a  canvas  is  a  simple  act,  yet 
such  acts  in  their  sequence  may  produce  a  work  of 
art.     Here  the    workman    understands   the    position 
and  value  of  each  act  in  the  sequence;  hence  he  is  not 
apt  to  feel  it  as   drudgery.      Drudgery    is   work    in 
which   the  elementary  acts  are  performed  unintelli- 
gently,  with  little  or  no  appreciation  <>f  their  position 
in  the  scheme  of  things,  as  when  a  day  laborer  toils 
at  digging  a  hole  in  the  ground  without  the  slightest 
knowledge  of  its  purpose,  not  caring,  indeed,  whether 
it  is  to  be  a  post-hole  or  a  grave,     lint  to  the  man  who 
is  searching  for  buried   treasure  the   digging  ceases 
to  be  drudgery;  he  knows  what  lie  is  about,  and  every 
shovelful  as  it  is  lifted  brings  him  nearer  to  possible 
gold  and  gems.     To  change  drudgery  into  interested 
labor,   therefore,  realize  what  you   are  doing;  know 
its  relation  to  what  has  gone  before  and  what  is  to 
come;  understand  what  it  is  you  are  working  on  and 
what  yon  are  working  for.     Learn  to  love  that  some- 
thing; and  all  that  you  can  do  to  shape  it,  to  increase 
its  usefulness  and  to  bring  it  into  new  relationships 
will  have  a  vivid  interest  to  you. 

What  could  be  duller  than  the  act  of  writing  in 
a  book,  hour  after  hour,  certain  particulars  regard- 
ing other  books,  the  authors  name,  the  title.  the  pub- 
lisher, the  size,  the  price?  lint  if  you  love  those  vol- 
umes, individually  or  generically,  and  if  you  realize 
that,  what  you  are  doing  is  a  necessary  step  in  the 
work  of  making  their  contents  accessible  and  useful 
—of  leading  others  to  love  them  as  yon  have  learned 
t0  do— then  and  only  then,  it  seems  to  me,  does  such 
a  task  as  accessioning  become  fall  of  interest.  And 
so  it  is  with  every    one  of   the   thousand    acts   that 


104  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

make  up  the  daily  work  of  a  library  assistant.  I  am 
saying  nothing  new ;  you  know  and  we  all  know  that 
the  laborer  who  does  his  work  well  is  he  who  does  it 
con  amove.  The  wage-earner  may  labor  primarily 
to  support  himself  and  his  family,  but  he  will  never 
really  earn  his  living  unless  his  work  is  of  a  kind 
that  can  command  his  whole-hearted  interest — un- 
less he  likes  it  and  takes  pride  in  doing  it  well.  This 
is  why  the  love  of  books — an  intelligent  interest  in 
literature  and  in  the  world's  written  records — is  so 
fundamental  a  necessity  for  a  librarian. 

It  should  be  emphasized  that  one  may  love  books 
even  if  some  of  the  great  masterpieces  leave  him  cold, 
just  as  one  may  love  humanity  though  Alexander  and 
Ca?sar,  we  will  say,  do  not  happen  to  stir  his  enthu- 
siasm. One  may  even,  in  a  way,  love  books  when  that 
love  is  expended  on  what  is  by  nature  ephemeral,  so 
long  as  it  is  lovable  and  excellent.  Perishability 
and  excellence  are  not  contraries  by  any  means. 
Indeed,  I  heard  a  painter  once,  indignant  because  his 
art  had  been  characterized  as  less  permanent  than 
sculpture,  with  implied  derogation,  assert  that  all 
beauty  is  of  its  nature  perishable.  If  this  be  so,  a 
thing  of  beauty,  instead  of  being  a  joy  forever,  is  a 
passing  pleasure  and  the  more  evanescent  as  it  nears 
perfection.  This  thesis  could  hardly  be  successfully 
maintained,  and  yet  I  conceive  that  it  has  in  it  an 
element  of  truth.  There  are  critics  who  refuse  to 
admire  anything  in  art  that  has  not  in  it  the  elements 
of  permanency.  A  sunset  they  will  acknowledge  to 
be  beautiful,  though  fleeting,  but  its  artistic  portray- 
al, they  say,  must  be  lasting.  An  idea,  a  passion, 
may  be  fine,  even  when  forgotten  in  a  moment,  but 
if  enshrined  in  literary  form  it  must  be  worth  pre- 
serving forever  or  they  regard  it  as  without  value. 
These  people  are    confusing    mere    durability    with 


THE   LOVE   OF   BOOKS  105 

beauty.  "Is  anything  that  doesn't  last  three  years 
a  book?"  asks  Mr.  Carnegie.  We  might  as  well  re- 
fuse to  admire  a  flower  because  it  fades  over  night, 
or  turn  from  our  daily  food  because  it  is  incapable 
of  retaining  indefinitely  its  savor  and  nutritious 
qualities.  It  cannot  be  too  strongly  emphasized  that 
a  thing  may  possess  beauty  and  usefulness  in  a  high 
degree  to-day  and  lose  them  both  to-morrow.  That 
is  an  excellent  reason  for  discarding  it  then,  but  not 
for  spurning  it  now.  What  is  cast  into  the  oven  of 
oblivion  to-morrow  may  to-day  be  arrayed,  beyond  all 
the  glories  of  Solomon,  in  aptness  of  allusion  and  in 
fitness  of  application. 

Much  of  the  best  that  appears  in  the  daily  press 
is  of  this  kind.  Along  with  a  good  deal  that  is  wor- 
thy of  long  life,  there  is  a  host  of  admirable  mate- 
rial in  the  ephemeral  paragraphs  that  we  are  accus- 
tomed to  despise.  We  may  despise  them,  but  still  we 
read ;  and  nothing  that  is  read  with  interested  atten- 
tion by  fifty  millions  of  people  is  really  despicable. 
The  average  newspaper  writer  may  well  be  content 
to  toss  off  paragraphs  for  us;  he  need  not  care  who 
constructs  our  leading  editorials.  The  influence  of 
the  paragraph  is  incomparably  the  greater ;  it  has  the 
raciness  of  the  soil,  shrewd  wit  driven  home  with  our 
native  exaggeration  and  the  sting  of  the  epigram. 
And  much  of  that  which  is  bound  between  covers  has 
this  peculiar  aroma  of  journalism — its  fitness  to-day, 
its  staleness  to-morrow.  This  sort  of  thing  may  be 
badly  done  or  it  may  be  well  done— inconceivably 
apt,  dainty  and  well-flavored.  If  it  is  of  the  best, 
why  may  we  not  love  it,  though  it  be  to-morrow  as 
flat  as  the  sparkling  wine  without  its  gaseous  bril- 
liancy? 

To  those  who  have  been  accustomed  to  books  from 
childhood,  who  have  lived    with    them    and    among 


10G  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

them,  who  constantly  read  them  and  read  about 
them,  they  seem  to  be  a  part  of  the  natural  order  of 
things.  It  is  something  of  a  shock  then  when  we 
awake,  as  we  all  must  occasionally,  to  the  realization 
that  to  a  very  large  proportion  of  our  population, 
supposedly  educated,  they  are  a  thing  apart — ped- 
antic, useless,  silly;  to  be  borne  with  during  a  few 
years  of  schooling  and  then  east  aside;  to  be  studied 
perfunctorily  but  never  to  be  read.  When  the  statis- 
tics of  reading  are  analyzed  I  believe  we  shall  be 
startled,  not  by  the  great  increase  in  it,  notable  and 
indubitable  as  this  is,  but  at  the  enormous  amount 
of  progress  that  still  remains  to  be  made  before  the 
use  of  books  by  our  people  indicates  any  real  general 
interest  in  them  and  appreciation  of  them.  An  atti- 
tude toward  books  that  is  very  general  is  indicated 
by  a  series  of  cartoons  which  has  now  been  running 
for  several  years  in  a  New  York  evening  paper — a 
proof  that  its  subject  must  strike  a  responsive  chord, 
for  the  execution  of  the  pictures  is  beneath  contempt. 
It  is  entitled  "Book-Taught  Bilkins,"  and  it  sets 
forth  how  on  one  occasion  after  another  Bilkins  re- 
lies on  the  information  that  he  finds  in  a  book — and 
meets  with  a  disaster.  This  is  a  trifle,  but  it  is  one 
of  those  straws  that  tell  which  way  the  wind  blows. 
A  presumably  intelligent  man,  a  graduate  of  the  pub- 
lic schools,  occupying  a  position  under  the  city,  re- 
cently remarked  to  one  of  our  library  people  that  he 
spent  his  holidays  usually  at  one  of  the  nearby  rec- 
reation parks.  "Why  don't  you  go  sometimes  to 
one  of  the  branches  of  the  public  library?"  he  was 
asked.  He  laughed  and  said,  "I've  never  read  a  book 
yet,  and  I  don't  think  I'll  start  now."  How  many 
are  there  like  him?  WTe  are  educating  them  by  thou- 
sands. They  leave  school  with  no  interest  in  books, 
without  the    slightest    appreciation    of    what    books 


THE   LOVE   OF   BOOKS  L07 

mean— certainly  with  no  love  for  them.  To  these 
people  books  are  but  the  vehicles  and  symbols  of  a 
hateful  servitude.  Perhaps  this  is  inevitable;  if  it 
is,  all  that  we  can  say  is  that  far  from  "continuing 
the  work  of  the  schools,*'  as  we  are  often  told  is  our 
function,  we  may  often  have  to  undo  a  part  of  it, 
which  consists  in  creating  an  attitude  of  hostility 
toward  books  and  reading.  Can  this  he  done  by  those 
who  do  not  appreciate  and  care  for  literature? 

I  do  not  want  to  be  considered  pessimistic.  This 
lack  of  interest  in  books  I  believe  to  he  noticeable 
largely  because  we  have  changed  our  whole  attitude 
toward  the  relationship  of  literature  to  the  people 
Love  for  books  used  to  be  regarded  as  properly  con- 
fined to  a  class;  that  the  bulk  of  people  did  not  care 
for  literature  was  no  more  significant  than  the  fact 
that  they  had  never  tasted  pate  de  foie  gras.  Now  we 
consider  that  every  one  ought  to  love  books — and 
the  fact  that  vast  numbers  of  people  do  not,  no  longer 
seems  natural  to  us.  That  these  people  are  be^in- 
ning  to  show  an  interest,  and  that  the  ranks  of  the 
indifferent  are  growing  slowly  less,  I  firmly  believe; 
and  it  is  my  opinion  that  the  public  library  is  no  in- 
considerable factor  in  the  change.  Some,  it  is  true, 
are  beginning  to  care  for  books  by  caring  for  poor 
and  trashy  books.  These,  however,  are  on  the  rijjht 
road;  they  are  on  their  way  up;  it  is  our  business 
not  to  despise  them,  but  to  help  them  up  further. 
Can  we  do  it  without  having  ourselves  a  proper  ap- 
preciation  of  what  is  good  in  books? 

But  can  a  love  for  books  be  taught?  To  those  who 
have  the  aptitude  for  it,  it  certainly  can.  In  other 
cases  if  cannot.  To  those  who  have  ii  in  them,  how- 
ever, appreciation  for  the  beautiful  may  certainly 
be  awakened  by  precept  and  example.  I  have  in 
mind  a  farmer  in  the  Virginia   mountains,  dwelling 


108  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

in  a  lovely  region,  but  among  a  rural  population 
without  the  slightest  appreciation  of  the  beauties  ol 
nature.  This  particular  man  had  worked  for  years 
in  and  about  a  summer  camp  and  had  thus  associated 
with  people  from  the  city  whose  appreciation  of  the 
fine  prospects  from  cliff  and  summit  was  unusually 
keen.  In  time  he  actually  came  to  feel  such  appre- 
ciation himself,  and  he  would  spend  the  whole  of  his 
rare  holidays  on  a  rocky  peak  4000  feet  above  the 
sea,  drinking  in  the  beauties  of  the  scene  and  eagerly 
pointing  them  out  to  his  tousle-headed  children,  all 
of  whom  he  took  with  him.  None  of  that  brood  will 
cease  to  love  nature,  I  am  sure,  and  their  lives  will 
be  sweeter  and  better  for  it,  In  like  fashion,  associa- 
tion with  people  who  appreciate  good  books  will 
awaken  a  similar  love  in  many  an  unpromising  mind. 
Mere  contact  with  the  books  themselves  may  do  it, 
and  so  our  open  shelves  have  brought  it  to  thousands, 
but  the  additional  influence  of  a  sympathetic  human 
mind  will  hasten  it  wonderfully.  The  busy  assistant 
at  the  desk  may  have  a  chance  to  say  but  a  single 
word.  Shall  that  word  relate  to  the  mechanics  of 
librarianship — the  charging  system,  the  application 
form,  the  shelf-arrangement — or  shall  it  convey  in 
some  indefinable  way  the  fact  that  here  is  a  body  of 
workers,  personally  interested  in  books  and  eager  to 
arouse  or  foster  such  an  interest  in  others? 

But  how  may  one  tell  whether  the  true  love  of 
books  is  in  him?  To  detect  it  in  another,  as  already 
noted,  requires  more  than  a  brief  acquaintance.  But 
to  test  oneself  is  easier.  What  would  the  world  be 
to  you  without  books?  Could  you  go  on  living  your 
life,  physically  and  mentally,  even  as  you  do  now,  if 
the  whole  great  series,  from  big  to  little,  from  old  to 
new,  from  the  Bible  and  Shakespeare  down  to  the 
latest  novel,  were  utterly  wiped  away?     If  you  can 


THE   LOVE   OF    BOOKS  109 

truthfully  say  that  such  a  cataclysm  would  make  no 
difference  to  you,  then  you  certainly  do  not  love 
books.  If  the  loss  of  them,  or  of  some  part  of  them — 
even  the  least — would  leave  a  void  in  your  life,  then 
you  have  that  love  in  greater  or  less  degree,  in  finer 
or  coarser  quality.  Let  us  pity  those  who  have  it 
not.  And  as  for  you  who  have  it,  you  surely  have  not 
only  a  fundamental  qualification  for  librarianship, 
but  that  which  will  make,  and  docs  make,  of  you  bet- 
ter men  and  women.  Let  us  perfect  ourselves  in  all 
the  minutiae  of  our  profession,  let  us  study  how  to 
elevate  it  and  make  it  more  effective,  but  let  us  not 
forget  the  book,  without  which  it  would  have  no  ex- 
istence. Possibly  the  librarian  who  reads  is  lost, 
but  the  librarian  who  has  never  read,  or  who,  having 
read,  has  imbibed  from  reading  no  feeling  toward 
books  but  those  of  dislike  or  indifference,  is  surely 
worse  than  lost — he  has,  so  far  as  true  librarianship 
goes,  never  existed. 


THE  LIBRARY  AS  THE  EDUCATIONAL 
CENTER  OF  A  TOWN 

In  using  this  expression  it  is  not  intended  to  im- 
ply that  the  library  is,  or  should  be,  the  only  place  in 
a  town  where  educational  processes  are  going  on — 
perhaps  not  even  the  principal  place.  The  center  of 
a  circle  is  not  the  whole  circle;  its  area  is  zero,  it  is 
simply  a  point  so  related  to  other  parts  of  the  figure 
as  to  give  it  supreme  importance.  The  center  of  a 
wheel,  through  which  the  axle  passes,  is  not  the  whole 
wheel,  but  around  it  the  whole  wheel  turns.  So  the 
educational  functions  of  a  town  library,  while  they 
may  not  hulk  large  in  a  catalog,  should  be  so  related 
to  those  of  other  institutions  in  the  community  as  to 
give  it  peculiar  importance  and  authority. 

It  is  Dot  accessary  here  to  remark  that  education 
is  what  its  name  implies  a  drawing  out,  ;i  develop- 
ment of  potentialities.  Because  it  is  this,  and  only 
this,  it  will  never  make  a  Shakespeare  or  a  Newton 
out  Of  one  who  has  it  not  "in  him,"  as  the  idiom  so 
well  runs,  to  become  one  or  the  other.  Because  it  is 
rhis.  There  are  men  who  do  have  in  them  potentiali- 
ties of  usefulness,  perhaps  even  of  greatness,  but  who 
for  la<-k  of  it,  die  undeveloped;  "mute"  and  "inglor- 
ious." 

Prom  the  moment  when  the  new-born  babe  feels 
the  contact  of  the  outer  world,  through  his  organs  of 
sense,  that  contact  begins  to  develop  his  possibilities. 
Here  education  begins,  and  it  ceases  only  with  the 
Stoppage  of  all  functions  at  death.  When  it  has 
gone  on  so  far  that  a  contact  is  established  with  other 


112  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

human  minds,  this  development  takes  a  special  turn 
that  differentiates  it  from  any  training  that  the  lower 
animals  receive — that  makes  it  a  link  in  the  educa- 
tion of  the  race.  Still  further  is  this  accentuated 
when  the  child  begins  to  have  access  to  the  printed 
refolds  of  the  race  in  the  shape  of  books. 

Books,  or  no  books,  his  educational  development 
goes  on.  at  home,  among  his  playmates,  in  his  chosen 
work  in  shop,  farm  or  office,  but  the  use  of  books 
gives  it  a  wider  relationship — a  broader  outlook. 
This  relation  of  our  formal  intellectual  records  to 
education  which  is  emphasized  especially  during  the 
period  of  attendance  at  school  or  college,  makes  a 
storehouse  of  books  of  peculiar  value  and  importance 
to  a  community.  Especially  should  the  existence  of 
such  a  collection  direct  the  attention  of  every  person 
in  the  community  to  the  fact  that  the  use  of  books  to 
develop  the  mind  and  broaden  the  possibilities  does 
not  properly  end  with  the  close  of  the  school  life.  It 
is  the  misfortune  of  the  school,  in  too  many  instances, 
that  its  work  engenders  a  hatred  of  books  instead  of 
a  love  for  them.  Play,  we  are  told,  is  "work  that  you 
don't  have  to  do."  It  is  the  merit  of  the  library  that 
there  is  no  compulsion  about  its  use.  We  dislike 
what  is  forced  upon  us,  but  the  study  which  is  the 
hardest  of  work  in  a  school  may  become  recreation 
when  one  is  free  to  follow  the  line  of  inclination 
among  the  books  of  a  well-made  collection.  In  this 
way  the  post-scholastic  education,  if  we  may  call  it 
so,  which  lasts  as  long  as  the  life,  is  kept  in  touch 
with  the  written  records,  instead  of  casting  those 
records  aside  and  proceeding  haphazard  wholly  on  so- 
called  "practical"  lines.  The  teachers  express  this, 
when  they  admit  the  public  library  at  all  into  the 
educational  pantheon,  by  saying  that  it  may  "con- 
tinue the  work  of  the  school."    This  is  a  one-sided  way 


EDUCATIONAL    CENTERS  113 

of  looking  at  the  matter — as  one-sided  as  it  would 
to  say  that  the  function  of  the  school  is  to  prepare 
people  for  the  use  of  the  public  library — a  statement 

no  less  and  no  more  true  than  the  other.  The  proper 
way  to  put  it  is  that  the  school  and  the  library  have 
closely  related  educational  functions,  both  employing 
largely  the  written  records  of  previous  attainment, 

but  the  school  concentrating  its  influence  on  a  short 
period  of  peculiar  susceptibility,  with  the  aid  of  en- 
forced personal  discipline  and  exposition,  while  tie' 
library  works  without  such  opportunities,  but  also 
freed  from  these  limitations.  Tims  the  library  uses 
books  as  a  means  of  development,  not  with  the  aid  of 
personal  influence,  but  without  taskmasters;  not 
without  discipline,  but  without  compulsion.  During 
the  years  of  school  attendance,  it  works  with  the 
school,  and  it  recognizes  the  fact  that  its  use  is  a 
habit  best  acquired  early.  This  is  the  reason  for  our 
separate  rooms  for  children,  with  their  special  col- 
lections and  trained  assistants,  and  also  for  our  ef- 
forts to  CO-ordinate  the  child's  reading  with  his  s ■•' 
work.  We  are  not  trying  to  set  up  a  rival  education- 
al system,  which  by  its  superior  attractiveness  may  di- 
vert, the  attention  of  the  child  from  school;  we  are 
merely  seeing  that  our  young  people  may  become  ac- 
customed to  use  books  properly,  to  love  them  dearly 
and  to  look  upon  the  place  where  they  are  housed  as 
in  some  sense  an  intellectual  refuge  through  life. 

This  closeness  of  contact  with  a  public  collection 
of  books  is  largely  a  modern  idea.  In  ancient  times 
the  safeguarding  and  preservation  of  the  individual 
book  was  far  more  important  than  it  is  today.  Great- 
er public  security,  and  especially  the  improvement  in 
methods  of  duplication,  have  now  made  such  care 
unnecessary,  except  in  the  case  of  volumes  ken 
curiosities,   or   for    occasional     use.      Tic    book 


114  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

does  the  most  for  popular  education  is  uot  kept  be- 
hind bars,  but  scut  out  broadcast  for  free  use,  short- 
ly perishing  in  the  flesh  to  be  reincarnated  in  fresh 
paper,  type  and  binding.  Sending  out  books  for  home 
use  lias  added  enormously  to  the  educational  value 
of  the  library  and  to  the  good  done  by  books — to  the 
number  of  points  of  contact  of  mind  with  mind. 
Along  the  same  line  has  been  the  development  of 
subsidiary  centers  of  distribution — branch  libraries. 
traveling  libraries,  delivery  stations.  All  these  have 
added  to  the  tendency  to  look  upon  the  public  libra- 
ry as  a  center  of  municipal  education.  In  many 
communities  it  is  being  looked  to  now  as  such  a  cen- 
ter in  matters  having  no  direct  connection  with 
books.  It  is  a  museum  on  a  small  scale;  a  lecture 
bureau;  the  maker,  sometimes  the  publisher,  of  lists 
and  bibliographies.  In  old  times  the  local  collector 
of  minerals  or  of  prints  turned  over  his  crystals  or 
his  pictures  to  the  school;  now,  as  likely  ;is  not,  he 
gives  them  to  the  library.  It  is  better  that  he 
should;  for  in  the  educational  life  of  the  individual, 
the  school  comes  and  goes,  but  the  library  goes  on 
forever. 

It  is  this  capacity  of  the  modern  library  to  reach 
out  beyond  its  own  walls  in  many  different  directions 
that  makes  it  proper  for  us  to  speak  of  it  as  a  center. 
In  a  similar  way  the  physicist  speaks  of  centers  of 
force.  And  as  a  body  exerting  attraction  or  repul- 
sion— a  magnetic  pole,  an  electrified  sphere,  a  gravi- 
tating particle — is  surrounded  by  a  field  of  force 
which  is  very  real,  though  invisible,  so  there  are  in- 
visible lines  that  connect  such  an  intellectual  center 
as  the  library  with  ev^ry  interest  in  the  community. 
We  recognize  this  in  our  colloquial  speech.  Did  you 
never  hear  of  a  network  of  branch  libraries?  Yet  on 
a  map  they  show  merely  a  system  of  dots.     The  net- 


EDUCATIONAL    CENTERS  115 

work  is  formed  of  the  commingling  fields  of  force, 
which  together  enmesh  the  community  in  a  web  of  in- 
tellectual influences.  And  as  an  ordinary  force  lias 
two  aspects,  so  the  influences  radiating  from  our  li- 
brary centers  are  directed  both  from  and  toward 
them.  The  up-to-date  library  strikes  out  ((.ward  every 
member  of  the  community  and  it  strives  to  draw  each 
one  to  itself.  It  sends  its  books  into  every  home,  its 
helpfu.  aids  to  reading  and  to  study,  its  library  news 
and  gossip  in  the  local  paper:  but  on  the  other  hand, 
its  cozy  rooms,  its  well-stocked  reference  shelves,  its 
willing  and  pleasant  attendants  exerl  on  every  man. 
woman  and  child  in  the  community  an  intellectual 
attraction,  and  having  let  them  taste  of  the  delights 
it  has  to  offer  sends  him  out  again  as  a  willing  mis 
sionary  to  lure  in  others.  By  such  methods  should 
the  library  strive  to  be  a  center  of  mental  develop- 
ment in  a  community;  by  such  methods  is  it  succeed- 
ing, for  no  other  center  can  vie  with  it  in  the  univer- 
sality of  its  appeal,  whether  we  follow  the  individual 
from  birth  to  death,  or  regard  the  various  members 
of  a  community  as  they  exist  at  one  specified  time. 

But  there  is  another  sense  in  which  the  library 
should  be  and  is  able  to  serve  as  the  intellectual  cen- 
ter of  a  community.  A  community's  moral  and  in- 
tellectual status  is  not  simply  the  sum  of  that  of  its 
component  members.  This  is  true  of  all  aggregates 
where  the  components  are  interrelated  in  any  way. 
In  all  such  cases  the  properties  of  the  whole  depend, 
it  is  true,  on  the  properties  of  the  components,  but 
not  by  simple  addition.  The  taste  of  common  salt  is 
not  the  taste  of  sodium  added  to  that  of  chlorine;  the 
feelings,  thoughts  and  acts  of  any  aggregate  of  men 
may  be  quite  different  from  those  of  the  men  taken 
individually.  This  is  true  whether  the  aggregate  be 
simply  a  body  of  spectators  in  a  theater,  mutually 


116  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

related  only  by  the  fact  of  their  common  presence  in 
the  place,  or  an  association,  or  the  members  of  a  mu- 
nicipal community.  The  human  aggregate  is  in  all 
cases  less  advanced  than  the  individual;  it  is  more 
primitive  in  its  emotions,  its  morals,  its  acts.  This 
might  be  expected,  since  the  formal  group,  of  what- 
ever kind,  began  its  evolution  later  than  the  individ- 
ual. A  community's  moral  sense  is  thus  less  advanced 
than  that  of  its  members;  it  will  lie,  swindle  and 
steal,  when  they  would  hesitate  to  do  so;  it  will  re- 
sort to  violence  sooner  than  th«y.  Its  intellectual 
ability  is  also  less;  its  business  transactions  are 
looser;  its  appreciation  of  artistic  values  is  inferior. 

The  education  of  a  group  of  men,  as  a  group,  is 
thus  something  different  from  the  education  of  its 
individual  members.  In  the  case  of  a  loose  group, 
such  as  an  audience,  it  could  not  be  attempted;  with 
a  group  dwelling  together  and  bound  by  ties  of  blood 
and  common  interest  it  is  not  only  possible  but  quite 
worth  while. 

Of  course  it  must  be  understood  that  whatever 
educates  the  individual  also  helps  to  educate  the  com- 
munity; but  when,  as  is  almost  always  the  case,  the 
community  lags  behind,  something  may  be  done  to 
bring  its  ideals,  feelings  and  acts  nearer  to  the  indi- 
vidual standard,  even  without  altering  the  latter. 

Now  we  have  already  been  reminded  by  Prof.  Vin- 
cent of  Chicago  university  that  the  library  may  act 
as  the  social  memory;  the  town  library  should  there- 
fore be  emphatically  the  municipal  memory.  And  as 
memory  is  the  basis  of  our  intellectual  life,  so  a  com- 
munal memory  of  this  kind  will  serve  as  the  basis  of 
the  community's  intellectual  life  and  as  a  means 
through  which  it  may  be  fostered  and  advanced.  As 
the  individual  looks  back  with  interest  on  his  own 
personal   history   and   refreshes  his   recollection   by 


EDUCATIONAL    CENTERS  117 

means  of  family  portraits,  old  letters,  diaries,  scrap- 
books  and  material  of  all  kinds,  so  the  community 
should  retain  consciousness  of  the  continuity  of  its 
own  history  by  keeping  in  the  public  library  full 
records  of  similar  import — files  of  all  local  publica- 
tions, printed  memorabilia  of  all  kinds,  material  for 
local  history,  even  to  the  point  of  imagined  trivial- 
ity; even  private  letters,  when  these  bear  in  any  way 
on  the  community  life.  The  legal  and  political  his- 
tory, or,  at  last,  its  dry  bones,  is  locked  up  in  the  of- 
ficial archives  or  the  town  or  city;  we  need,  in  addi- 
tion, an  intellectual  and  social  hall  of  records  out  of 
which  the  delver  in  local  history  may  clothe  this  skel- 
eton with  flesh  and  blood. 

A  man  with  a  memory  has  the  basis  for  a  mind  and 
a  conscience ;  so  a  community  with  this  kind  of  a  col- 
lective memory  is  much  more  apt  than  another  to 
develop  collective  intelligence  and  collective  morality. 
It  may  be  asserted,  not  as  a  figure  of  speech,  but  as  a 
cold  fact,  that  a  community  whose  citizens  look  back 
upon  an  honorable  history  with  records  preserved  in 
an  accessible  place,  ought  to  be  much  less  likely  to 
sanction  a  trolley  steal  or  to  wink  at  official  graft. 

In  a  recent  striking  address,  Prof.  William  James 
has  called  attention  to  the  importance  of  the  things 
that  may  serve  to  unlock  stores  of  reserve  energy. 
When  the  runner's  fatigue  has  increased  up  to  a  cer- 
tain point  he  all  at  once  gets,  as  we  say,  his  "second 
wind'' — something  to  enable  him  to  draw  on  a  re- 
serve energy7.  These  reserves,  Prof.  James  tells  us,  we 
all  possess,  especially  in  matters  of  the  intellect  and 
morals;  they  may  be  unlocked  by  ideas,  sentiments 
or  objects.  The  ideas  represented  by  such  phrases — 
catchwords,  if  you  choose  to  call  them  so — as  love, 
mother,  home,  liberty,  church,  the  old  flag;  righteous- 
ness, civic  duty — have  had  a  power  in  setting  energy 


118  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

free  and  accomplishing  results,  that  is  beyond  esti- 
mation. In  regarding  the  library  as  a  center  of  mu- 
nicipal education  we  make  it  a  storehouse  of  objects 
and  records,  with  their  associated  ideas  and  senti- 
ments, that  are  competent  to  act  in  just  this  way.  A 
man  who  feels  that  he  is  a  "citizen  of  no  mean  city," 
who  has  been  made  to  realize  it  from  earliest  child- 
hood, whose  mind  turns  habitually  to  the  storehouse 
that  lias  done  most  to  make  him  realize  it,  is  a  nobler 
man,  and  the  community  of  which  he  is  a  part  is  a 
nobler  community,  than  if  such  a  place  were  non-ex- 
istent, or  if  its  records  and  associations  were  scat- 
tered and  unheeded.  This  is  a  most  cogent  reason 
for  making  the  library  the  intellectual  center  of  the 
town,  as  the  town  hall  is  the  political  and  the  church 
the  religious  center;  for  seeing  in  it  not  alone  a  col- 
lection of  books,  however  good,  that  are  given  out  to 
those  who  ask  for  them  but  a  means  for  guiding  and 
leading  the  town's  intellectual  progress,  for  turning 
it  from  trivialities  to  what  is  worth  while,  caring  for 
the  children's  reading,  stimulating  public  thought  by 
lectures,  endeavoring  by  every  legitimate  means  to 
attract  toward  it  the  public  eye  in  regard  to  all  things 
that  contribute  to  individual  and  civic  development. 
The  most  important  part  of  our  education,  says 
Eniil  Reich,  we  gain  after  Ave  are  twenty-five  years 
old.  We  cannot  prevent  the  acquisition  of  such  a 
post-graduate  education  by  every  young  man  and 
young  woman  in  the  town.  The  question  is  not: 
Shall  the  mind  be  trained?  Shall  character  be  de- 
veloped? It  is  rather,  How  and  by  what  means  shall 
the  development  go  on?  Under  what  auspices  shall 
it  take  place  and  toward  what  end  shall  it  point? 
Shall  it  deal  in  trivialities  and  end  in  vacuity?  Shall 
it    impart    insincerity,     dishonesty,     uncleanliness? 


EDUCATIONAL    CENTERS  119 

Shall  its  product  be  a  useless  citizen,  an  indifferent 
one,  a  positively  harmful  one? 

The  answers  to  these  questions  depend  on  the 
home,  the  church,  the  school — a  score,  perhaps,  of 
minor  ciyic  societies.  Let  us  at  the  very  center  of 
the  town's  mental  and  moral  life  erect  an  institution, 
which,  having  as  its  basal  object  the  collection,  pres- 
ervation and  popularization  of  the  records  of  what 
has  been  worth  while  in  the  past,  may  serve  also  as 
a  support  to  what  is  good  in  the  present,  and  a  lad- 
der on  which  the  community  may  mount  to  still  bet- 
ter things  in  the  future.  Is  this  too  large,  too  serious 
a  view  to  take  of  the  importance  of  the  public  libra- 
ry? That  will  depend  on  what  we  choose  to  make  of 
it — a  mere  pile  of  books  to  be  turned  over  by  the 
passerby,  or  a  true  center  of  municipal  education. 


THE  LIBRARIAN  AS  A  CENSOR* 

"Some  are  born  great;  some  achieve  greatness; 
some  have  greatness  thrust  upon  them."  It  is  in 
this  last  way  that  the  librarian  has  become  a  censor 
of  literature.  Originally  the  custodian  of  volumes 
placed  in  his  care  by  others,  he  has  ended  by  becom- 
ing in  these  latter  days  much  else,  including  a 
selector  and  a  distributor,  his  duties  in  the  former 
capacity  being  greatly  influenced  and  modified  by 
the  expansion  of  his  field  in  the  latter.  As  the  li- 
brary's audience  becomes  larger,  as  its  educational 
functions  spread  and  are  brought  to  bear  on  more 
of  the  young  and  immature,  the  duty  of  sifting  its 
material  becomes  more  imperative.  I  am  not  re- 
ferring now  to  the  necessity  of  selection  imposed 
upon  us  by  lack  of  funds.  A  man  with  five  dollars 
to  spend  can  buy  only  five  dollars*  worth  from  a  stock 
worth  a  hundred,  and  it  is  unfair  to  say  that  he  has 
"rejected"  the  unbought  ninety-five  dollars'  worth. 
Such  a  selection  scarcely  involves  censorship,  and  we 
may  cheerfully  agree  with  those  who  say  that  from 
this  point  of  view  the  librarian  is  not  called  upon 
to  be  a  censor  at  all.  But  there  is  another  point  of 
view.  A  man,  we  will  say,  is  black-balled  at  a  club 
because  of  some  unsavory  incident  in  his  life.  Is  it 
fair  to  class  him  simply  with  the  fifty  million  people 
who  still  remain  outside  of  the  club?  lie  would,  we 
will  say,  have  been  elected  but  for  the  incident  that. 
was  the  definite  cause  of  his  rejection.  So  there  are 
books  that  would  have  been  welcome  on  our  library 
shelves  but  for  some  one  objectionable  feature,  whose 

♦Presidential    address    before    th«;    American    Library    Association. 
Lake  Minnetonka  Conference,   June.   1908. 


122  LIBKARY  ESSAYS 

appearance  on  examination  ensures  their  exclusion — 
some  glaring  misstatement,  some  immoral  tendency, 
some  offensive  matter  or  manner.  These  are  distinct- 
ly rejected  candidates.  And  when  the  library 
authority,  whether  librarian,  book  committee,  or  paid 
expert,  points  out  the  objectionable  feature  that  bars 
out  an  otherwise  acceptable  book  the  function  exer- 
cised is  surely  censorship. 

May  any  general  laws  be  laid  down  on  this  sub- 
ject? 

Let  us  admit  at  the  outset  that  there  is  absolutely 
no  book  that  may  not  find  its  place  on  the  shelves  of 
some  library  and  perform  there  its  appointed  func- 
tion. From  this  point  of  view  every  printed  page  is 
a  document,  a  record  of  something,  material,  as  the 
French  say,  pour  servir;  from  a  mass  of  such  mate- 
rial neither  falsity,  immorality  nor  indecency  can 
exclude  it.  I  do  not  speak  at  this  time,  therefore,  of 
the  library  as  a  storehouse  of  data  for  the  scholar 
and  the  investigator,  but  rather  of  the  collection  for 
the  free  use  of  the  general  public  and  especially  of 
collections  intended  for  circulation.  It  is  to  these 
that  the  censorship  to  which  I  have  alluded  may  prop- 
erly apply  and  upon  these  it  is  generally  exercised. 
I  know  of  no  more  desirable  classification  of  books 
for  our  present  purpose  than  the  old  three  categories 
— the  Good,  the  True,  and  the  Beautiful.  Those  books 
that  we  desire,  we  want  because  they  fall  under  one 
or  more  of  these  three  heads — they  must  be  morally 
beneficial,  contain  accurate  information  or  satisfy 
the  esthetic  sense  in  its  broadest  meaning.  Converse- 
ly we  may  exclude  a  book  because  it  lacks  goodness, 
truth  or  beauty.  We  may  thus  reject  it  on  one  or 
more  of  the  three  following  grounds;  badness — that 
is  undesirable  moral  teaching  or  effect;  falsity — 
that  is,  mistakes,  errors   or   misstatements   of   fact; 


LIBRARIAN  AS   A   CENSOR  123 

and  ugliness— matter   or   manner   offensive    to    our 
sense  of  beauty,  fitness  or  decency.     The  first  and 
third  qualities,  badness  and  ugliness,  are  often  wrong- 
ly confounded,  and  as  I  desire  therefore  to  speak  of 
them  together,    we  will    now    take  up    the    second, 
namely,  falsity  or  lack  of  truth.     Strangely  enough' 
among  all  reasons  for  excluding  books    this   is    per- 
haps least  often  heard.     Possibly  this  is  because  it 
applies  only  to  non-fiction,   and   apparently   in   the 
minds  of  many  non-fiction    is    desirable    simply    be- 
cause it  is  what  it  is.    Again,  the  application  of  this 
test  to  any  particular  book   can   generally   be   made 
only  by  an  expert.     The  librarian  needs  no  adviser 
to  tell  him  whether  or  not  a  book  is  immoral  or  in- 
decent, but  he  cannot   so    easily    ascertain    whether 
the  statements  in  a  work  on  history,  science  or  travel 
are  accurate.     This  lack  of  expert  knowledge  is  bad 
enough  when  inaccuracy  or  falsity   of   statement   is 
involuntary  on  the  author's  part.      But   of   late    we 
have  in  increasing  numbers  a  class  of  books  whose 
authors  desire  to  deceive  the    public— to    make    the 
reader   take   for    authentic    history,     biography    or 
description  what  is  at  best  historical  fiction.    Again, 
the  increasing  desire  to  provide  information  for  "chil- 
dren and  to  interest  the  large  class  of  adults  who  are 
intellectually  young  but  who  still  prefer  truth  to  fic- 
titious narrative,  has   produced   countless    books   in 
which  the  writer  has  attempted  to   state   facts,    his- 
torical., scientific  or  otherwise,  in  as  simple,  and  at 
the  same  time  as  striking,  language  as  possible.    Un- 
fortunately, with  some  noteworthy    exceptions,    per- 
sons with  comprehensive  knowledge  of  a  subject  are 
generally  not  able  to  present  it  in  the  desired  way. 
Co-operation  is  therefore  necessary,  and  it  is  not  al- 
ways properly  or  thoroughly  carried  out,  even  where 
the  necessity  for  it  is  realized.     Proper  co-operation 


124  LIBRARY  ESSAYS 

between  the  expert  and  the  popularizer  involves  (1) 
the  selection  and  statement  of  the  facts  by  the  for- 
mer; (2)  their  restatement  and  arrangement  of  the 
latter;  and  (3)  tlie  revision  of  this  arrangement  by 
the  former.  It  is  this  third  process  that  is  often 
omitted  even  in  serious  cyclopedic  work,  and  the  re- 
sult is  inaccuracy.  Often,  however,  there  is  no  co- 
operation at  all;  the  writer  picks  up  his  facts  from 
what  lie  considers  reliable  sources,  puts  them  into 
eminently  readable  shape,  dwelling  on  what  seem  to 
him  striking  features,  heightening  contrasts  here  and 
slurring  over  distinctions  or  transitions  there.  This 
process  produces  what  scientific  men  call  contemp- 
tuously "newspaper  science,"  and  we  have  as  well 
newspaper  history,  newspaper  sociology  and  so  on. 
They  till  the  pages  not  only  of  our  daily  press,  but 
of  our  monthly  magazines  and  of  too  many  of  the 
books  that  stand  on  our  library  shelves.  It  is  unfair 
to  blame  the  newspapers  alone  for  their  existence;  in 
fact,  some  of  the  best  simple  presentations  of  valu- 
able information  that  we  have  appear  in  the  daily 
press.  Then  there  are  the  text  books.  Any  librarian 
who  has  ever  tried  to  select  a  few  of  the  best  of  one 
kind — say  elementary  arithmetics — to  place  on  his 
shelves,  knows  that  their  name  is  legion  and  that  dif- 
ferences between  them  are  largely  confined  to  com- 
pilers' names  and  publishers'  imprints.  In  part  they 
are  subject  to  the  same  sources  of  error  as  the  pop- 
ularized works  and  in  addition  to  the  temptation  to 
hasty,  scamped  or  stolen  work  due  to  some  publish- 
er's or  teacher's  cupidity.  This  catalog  might  be  ex- 
tended indefinitely,  but  even  now  we  begin  to  see  the 
possibilities  of  rejection  on  the  ground  of  falsity  and 
inaccuracy.  I  believe  that  the  chief  menace  to  the 
usefulness  of  the  public  libraries  lies,  not  as  some  be- 
lieve in  the  reading  of    frankly    fictitious    narrative, 


LIBRARIAN  AS   A   CENSOR  125 

but  in  the  use  of  false  or  misleading  history,  biogra- 
phy, science  and  art.  Not  the  crude  or  inartistic 
printing  of  toy  money,  but  the  counterfeiting  of  real 
money,  is  a  menace  to  the  circulating  medium. 

Against  such  debasement  of  the  sterling  coin  of 
literature  it  is  the  duty  of  the  librarian  to  fight;  and 
he  cannot  do  it  single-handed.  Souk-  things  he  should 
and  does  know;  he  is  able  to  tell  whether  the  subject 
matter  is  presented  in  such  a  way  as  to  be  of  value 
to  his  readers;  he  can  tell  whether  the  simple  and 
better  known  facts  of  history  and  science  are  cor- 
rectly stated;  he  is  often  an  authority  in  one  or  more 
subjects  in  which  he  is  competent  to  advise  as  an  ex- 
pert; but  only  the  ideal  paragon,  sometimes  described 
but  never  yet  incarnated,  can  qualify  simultaneously 
as  an  expert  in  all  branches  of  science,  philosophy, 
art  and  literature.  The  librarian  must  have  expert 
advisers. 

Nor  are  these  so  difficult  to  obtain.  The  men  who 
know  are  the  very  ones  that  are  Interested  in  the  li- 
brary's welfare  and  are  likely  to  help  it  without  com- 
pensation. And  in  the  smaller  places  where  the  va- 
riety and  extent  of  special  knowledge  is  Less  compre- 
hensive the  ground  covered  by  the  library's  collection 
is  also  less,  and  the  advice  that  it  needs  is  simpler. 
The  advice  should  if  possible  be  personal  and  definite. 
No  amount  of  lists,  I  care  not  who  prepares  or  anno- 
tates them,  can  take  the  place  of  the  friend  at  one's 
elbow  who  is  able  and  willing  to  give  aid  just  when 
and  exactly  where  it  is  needed.  As  well  might  the 
world's  rulers  dismiss  all  their  cabinet  ministers  and 
govern  from  textbooks  on  law  and  ethics.  The  for- 
mula, the  treatise,  the  bibliography — we  must  still 
have  all  these,  but  they  must  be  supplemented  by 
personal  advice.  And  competent  advisers  exist,  as 
I  have  said,  in  almost  ev^ry  place.     The  local  clergy 


126  LIBKAEY  ESSAYS 

on  questions  of  religion,  and  often  on  others,  too; 
the  school  principal  on  history  and  economics,  the  or- 
ganist on  music,  the  village  doctor  on  science — some 
such  men  will  always  be  found  able  and  glad  to  give 
advice  on  these  subjects  or  some  others;  and  the  place 
is  small  indeed  that  does  not  include  one  or  two  en- 
thusiasts, collectors  of  insects  or  minerals  or  antiqui- 
ties, who  have  made  themselves  little  authorities  on 
their  pet  hobbies  and  may  possibly  be  the  greatest  or 
the  only  living  authorities  on  those  local  phases  that 
particularly  interest  the^  local  librarian.  It  will  do 
the  librarian  no  harm  to  hunt  these  men  out  and  ask 
their  aid;  possibly  his  own  horizon  will  broaden  a 
little  with  the  task  and  his  respect  for  the  community 
in  which  he  works  will  grow  as  he  performs  it. 

But  what  if  two  of  our  doctors  disagree?  Then 
follow  the  advice  of  both.  It  might  be  disastrous  for 
a  patient  to  take  two  kinds  of  medicine,  but  it  can 
never  hurt  a  library  to  contain  books  on  both  sides 
of  a  question,  whether  it  be  one  of  historical  fact,  of 
religious  dogma,  or  of  scientific  theory.  This  may 
not  be  pressed  too  far ;  the  following  of  one  side  may 
be  beneath  our  notice.  It  is  not  absolutely  necessary, 
for  instance,  for  a  small  popular  circulating  library 
to  contain  works  in  advocacy  of  the  flatness  of  the 
earth  or  of  the  tenets  of  the  angel  dancers  of  Hack- 
ensack ;  but  it  is  essential  that  such  a  library  should 
make  accessible  to  its  readers  the  facts  of  the  Refor- 
mation as  stated  by  both  Catholic  and  Protestant 
writers,  histories  of  the  American  Civil  War  written 
from  both  the  southern  and  northern  standpoints, 
geological  works  both  asserting  and  denying  the  ex- 
istence of  a  molten  core  in  the  earth-s  interior.  An 
impartial  book  is  hard  to  find;  it  is  a  thing  of  value, 
but  I  am  not  sure  that  two  partisan  books,  one  on 
each  side,  with  the  reader  as  judge,  do  not  constitute 


LIBRARIAN  AS  A   CENSOR  127 

a  winning  combination.  Against  violent  and  personal 
polemics,  of  course,  the  librarian  must  set  his  face. 
All  such  are  candidates  for  rejection.  It  is  fortunate 
for  us  in  this  regard  that  we  are  supplying  the  needs 
of  all  creeds,  all  classes  and  all  schools.  Each  must 
and  should  have  its  own  literature  while  each  pro- 
tests against  violent  attacks  on  its  own  tenets.  Such 
protests,  while  often  unjustified,  are  helping  us  to 
weed  out  our  collections. 

So  much  for  deficiency  in  truth  as  a  cause  for 
rejection.  Now  let  us  consider  deficiency  in  goodness 
and  deficiency  in  beauty;  or  stated  positively,  badness 
and  ugliness.  These  two  things  are  confounded  by 
many  of  us.  Is  this  because  the  great  majority  of  li- 
brarians to-day  are  of  the  sex  that  judges  largely  by 
intuition  and  often  by  instinctive  notions  of  beauty 
and  fitness?  To  most  women,  I  believe  all  ugliness  is 
sinful,  and  all  sin  is  ugly.  Now  sin  is  morally  ugly, 
without  doubt,  but  it  may  not  be  esthetically  so.  And 
goodness  may  be  esthetically  repulsive.  Badness 
and  ugliness  in  books  are  both  adequate  grounds  for 
rejection,  but  they  need  not  coexist.  Some  of  the 
worst  books  are  artistically  praiseworthy  and  would 
be  well  worth  a  place  of  honor  on  our  shelves  if  their 
beauty  alone  were  to  move  us.  On  the  other  hand, 
some  books  that  are  full  of  impropriety  or  even  of  in- 
decency are  absolutely  unimpeachable  from  a  moral 
standpoint. 

Shakespeare  and  the  Bible  are  often  indecent 
without  being  in  the  least  immoral.  "Raffles"  is  in 
no  wise  indecent,  but  is  dangerously  immoral.  Ber- 
nard Shaw  is  often  both  indecent  and  immoral  while 
at  the  same  time  so  astoundingly  clever  that  we  stand 
gaping  at  him  with  our  mouths  wide  open  while  he 
tosses  down  our  throats  the  most  unsavory  things. 

What,  then,  is  the    distinction    between    badness 


128  LIBRARY  ESSAYS 

and  ugliness?  For  our  present  purpose  I  believe  it 
to  be  this:  badness  depends  on  immutable  laws,  while 
ugliness,  at  any  rate  that  of  the  kind  which  concerns 
us  here,  is  a  matter  of  convention.  Virtue,  with  all 
due  apologies  to  Mr.  Lecky  and  to  many  other  emin- 
ent scholars,  has  certain  standards  that  do  not  vary 
with  place  or  time.  Let  us  grant  that  a  given  act 
may  be  good  to-day  and  bad  to-morrow,  good  in  Tas- 
mania and  bad  in  Pennsylvania;  this  is  beside  the 
question.  We  have  here  to  do  with  the  classification 
of  this  particular  act  in  certain  Sxed  categories  that 
of  themselves  remain  bad  or  good.  The  act  of  cutting 
off  a  man's  head  may  be  good  if  the  cutter  is  the  pub- 
lic executioner,  and  bad  if  he  be  a  private  citizen; 
one  may  shoot  an  attacking  highwayman  but  not  an 
innocent  friend.  The  reason  for  these  differences, 
however,  is  that  in  one  case  the  killing  is  murder 
while  in  the  other  it  is  not;  murder  itself  always  was 
and  always  will  be  bad. 

Impropriety  or  indecency,  on  the  other  hand,  is 
purely  arbitrary.  Personally  I  am  inclined  to  think 
this  true  of  all  beauty,  but  it  is  unnecessary  to  ob- 
trude this  view  here.  Impropriety  is  a  violation  of 
certain  social  customs,  and  although  I  should  be  the 
last  to  question  the  observance  of  those  customs,  we 
must  grant,  I  think,  that  they  rest  on  foundations 
quite  other  than  those  of  right  and  wrong.  In  fact 
decency,  instead  of  being  on  the  same  plane  with 
morality,  comes  nearer  to  being  properly  ranked  with 
those  fixed  categories  mentioned  above,  which  are 
themselves  always  good  or  bad,  but  which  may  or 
may  not  include  a  given  act,  according  to  circum- 
stances. Murder  is  always  bad,  but  whether  the  tak- 
ing of  life  is  or  is  not  murder  depends  on  the  circum- 
stances; it  may  depend  entirely  on  motive.  So  inde- 
ceucy  is  always  bad,  but  whether  a  given  act  or  object 


LIBRARIAN  AS   A   CENSOR  129 

is  or  is  not  indecent  depends  on  circumstances;    it 
may  depend  not  only  on  motive  but  on  locality  or  en- 
vironment.   Objects  and  acts  of  the  highest  sanctity 
in  one  country  may  be  regarded  as  low  and  vulgar  in 
another— the  standard  varies    from    class    to    class, 
from  one  occupation  to  another ;  almost  from  family 
to  family.     One  may  mention,  in  all  innocence,  that 
which  may  bring  a  blush  to  the  cheek  of  some  listener, 
simply  because  of  this  instability  of  standard  in  the 
matter  of  impropriety.     To  this  class  of  tilings  par- 
ticularly refers  the  celebrated  dictum:    "There  is  no 
thing  in  heaven  or  earth,  Horatio,  but  thinking  makes 
it  so."     This  is  unexceptionable    Christian    Science, 
but  it  is  not  quite  true.     A    higher    authority    than 
Shakespeare  has  asserted  that  by  thinking  one  can- 
not make  a.  single  hair  white  or  black ;  and  this  sure- 
ly accords  with  the  results  of  experience.     Likewise 
no  one  by  thinking  can  make  badness  goodness  or  the 
reverse.     But  whether  a  thing  be  improper  or  not 
depends  entirely  on  thinking.     Thinking  makes  it  so. 
It  is  improper  for  a  Mohammedan  woman  to  expose 
her  face  in  public  because  she  thinks  it  is,  and  because 
that  thought  is  an  ingrained  part  of  her  existence. 
But  although  the  Persian  sect  of  Assassins  thought 
with  all  their  hearts  that  murder  was  good,  it  was 
still  very  evil.    Are  we  getting  too  far  away  from  the 
censorship  of  books?     I  think  not.     See  the  bearing 
of  all  this. 

If  a  book  is  really  bad— if  it  teaches  that  evil  is 
good  or  that  it  makes  no  difference — it  ought  to  be 
rejected  uncompromisingly,  despite  the  fact  that  it 
is  void  of  impropriety  or  even  artistically  admirable. 
But  if  it  is  morally  unobjectionable  and  yet  contains 
that  which  is  improper  or  indecent,  it.  is  then  proper 
to. inquire  whether  the  degree  and  kind  of  this  inde- 
cency   is  such  as  to  condemn  it.  particularly  taking  in- 


130  LIBRARY  ESSAYS 

to  account  the  condition,  the  intelligence  and  the  age 
of  those  who  would  be  likely  to  read  it,  and  also  the 
time  and  the  readers  for  whom,  if  it  is  an  old  book, 
its  author  originally  wrote  it.  With  increasing  civ- 
ilization there  arc  certain  things  that  become  more 
and  more  indecent,  and  others  that  become  less  and 
less  so,  owing  to  the  shifting  of  points  of  view. 

Let  us  now  take  up  more  specifically  moral  bad- 
ness as  a  cause  for  rejection.  We  occasionally  meet 
people  who  hold  that  the  mention  of  anything  moral- 
ly bad  in  a  book  condemns  it;  while,  on  the  other 
hand,  some  would  admit  books  whose  atmosphere 
reeks  with  evil;  whose  bad  characters  live  bad  lives 
and  speak  bad  thoughts,  so  long  as  the  writer  in  his 
own  person  does  not  commend  evil  or  teach  that  it 
is  good.  Both  these  extremes  are  to  be  avoided. 
Surely  we  have  outlived  the  idea  that  innocence  and 
ignorance  are  the  same  thing.  "You  can't  touch 
pitch/'  says  the  proverb,  "and  not  be  defiled." 
( 1  ranted;  yet  we  may  look  at  pitch,  or  any  other  dirt, 
and  locate  it,  without  harm;  nay,  we  must  do  so  if 
we  want  to  keep  out  of  it.  This  is  not  saying  that  it 
is  well  to  seek  out  descriptions  of  evil,  or  to  dwell  on 
them,  in  a  work  of  fiction.  Things  necessary  in  the 
study  of  medicine,  folk-lore  or  law  may  be  abhorrent 
in  a  narrative  intended  for  amusement,  although  the 
advent  of  the  "problem"  novel — the  type  of  fiction  in 
which  the  narrative  form  is  often  merely  the  sugar 
coating  for  the  pill — introduces  confusion  here  into 
any  rule  that  we  may  lay  down.  But  however  foolish 
it  is  to  insist  that  the  very  existence  of  evil  be  con- 
cealed from  readers  of  fiction,  since  evil  is  a  normal 
constituent  of  the  world  as  we  find  it,  it  is  certainly 
fair  to  object  to  a  dwelling  upon  evil  phases  of  life 
to  such  an  extent  that  the  resulting  impression  is  a 
distortion  of  the  truth.     This  distortion  may  be  so 


LIBRARIAN  AS   A   CENSOR  131 

great  as  to  make  it  proper  to  reject  the  book  wholly 
on  the  ground  of  falsity.    A  filling  of  the  canvas  with 
lurid  tints  is  apt  to  convey-or  at  any  rate  is  often 
so  done  as  to  convey-the  idea  that  the  existence  of 
the  evil  that  the  writer  depicts  is  a  matter  of  indif- 
ference.   A  man  need  not  stop  to  assert  his  belief  that 
theft  is  wrong  whenever  he  tells  the  story  of  a  rob- 
bery, but  it  is  quite  possible  to  tell  a  tale  of  theft  in 
such  a  way  as  to  leave  an  impression  that  it  is  a  venial 
offense  and  to  weaken  in  the  reader  the  moral  inhibi- 
tion that  must  be  his  chief  reliance  in  time  of  temp- 
tation    And  for  "theft"  here  we  may  substitute  any 
form  of  moral  dereliction  that  you  may  desire     One 
of  the  most  potent  vehicles  of  moral  downfall  of  any 
kind  is  the  impression  that  "everybodv  does  it"— that 
some  particular  form  of  wrongdoing  is  well-nio-h  uni- 
versal and  is  looked  upon  with  leniency  bv  soeietv  in 
general.     The  man  who  steals  from  his  emplover  or 
who  elopes  with  his  neighbor's  wife  is  nine  times  out 
of  ten  a  willing  convert  to  this  view.    A  book  that  con- 
veys such  an  idea  is  really  more  dangerous  than  one 
which  openly  advocates  wrong  doing.     There  can  be 
little  difference  of  opinion  here.    There  mav  be  more 
in  regard  to  the  policy  of  telling  the  whole  truth  re- 
garding a  state  of  things  that  is  morally  very  bad     It 
may  be  fatal  to  a  patient  to  let  him  know  how  ill  he 
is.    And  may  it  not  also  be  injurious  to  a  vouim-  man 
or  a  young  woman  to  expose  the  amount  of  evil  that 
really  lies  before  them  in  this  world?    There  is  plausi- 
bility m  this  argument,  but  it  is  out  of  date.    There  is 
much  philosophy  in    the   modern    paradoxical    slang 
phrase:  "Cheer  up!  the  worst  is  yet  to  come!"    And 
indeed  if  there  is  any  superlative  badness  ahead  of  us 
it  is  better  that  we  should  know  it,  rather  than  culti- 
vate a  false  cheerfulness,    based   on    misinformation 
with  the  certainty  of  disillusionment.    The  Egyptians 


132  LIBRARY  ESSAYS 

were  right  when  they  set  a  skeleton  at  their  feasts. 
It  was  not  to  make  the  feasts  gloomy,  but  to  make 
the  skeleton  a  familiar  object  by  association;  to  ac- 
custom the  feasters  to  think  about  death,  how  to  avoid 
it  as  Long  as  possible  and  how  to  meet  it  when  in- 
evitable. We  should  therefore  welcome  the  truth  in 
any  book,  unless  it  is  that  "half  truth,"  which  the 
poet  tells  us  is  "ever  the  blackest  of  lies,"  or  unless 
it  is  so  stated  as  to  violate  the  canons  of  decency,  in 
which  case,  as  we  have  already  seen,  its  rejection 
must  be  based  on   different  considerations  entirely. 

It  is  these  canons  of  decency,  after  all,  that  give 

the  librarian  bis  sleepless  nights,  not  only  because 

they  are  so  frequently  confounded    with    canons    of 

morality,  but  because,  as  we  have  already  seen,  they 

are  arbitrary  and  variable.     Consider  the  one  case  of 

French  fiction.     Mr.  Wister  has  told  librarians  that 

all  subjects  are  "fit  for  fiction."     This  is  interesting 

as  an  academic  thesis,  but  when  the  French  proceed 

to  act  upon  it,  the  Anglo-Saxon  catches   his   breath. 

Books,  like  men,  when  they  are  in  Rome  must  do  as 

the  Romans  do,  and  whatever  may  be  proper  in  Paris, 

an  American  public  library  is  justified  in  requiring  its 

books  to  respect  American  prejudices.     This  is  true, 

at  any  rate,  of  books  in  the  English  language,  even  if 

they  are  translations  from  a  tongue  whose  users  have 

other  customs  and  other  prejudices.     But  how  about 

these  books  in  the  original?    Can  we  assume  that  books 

in  the  French  language  are  for  Frenchmen  and  that 

our  censorship  of  them  is  to  be  from  the  French  and 

not  the  American  point  of  view?     Or  shall  we  hold 

that  they  are  to  be  read  wholly  or  in  part  by  persons 

whose  mother-tongue  is  English  and  whose  ideas  of 

the  proprieties  are  Anglo-Saxon?    And  shall  we  bear 

in  mind  also  that  the   reading   public    of  a   work    of 

French  fiction  excludes  in  France    the    "young    per- 


LIBRARIAN  AS   A  CENSOR  133 

son"  of  whom  the  American  library  public  is  largely 
made  up?  This  is  only  one  of  the  perplexing  ques- 
tions that  confront  the  American  librarian  in  this 
field.  Every  one  must  struggle  with  it  for  himself, 
having  in  mind  the  force  and  direction  of  Ids  own  lo- 
cal sentiment;  but  few  public  libraries  are  treating  it 
consistently  and  systematically.  Probably,  however, 
many  librarians  are  placing  on  open  shelves  books  in 
foreign  languages,  whose  translations  into  English 
they  would  be  inclined  to  restrict.  In  some  cases,  of 
course,  appeal  to  a  wholly  foreign  group  of  readers, 
with  their  foreign  point  of  view,  may  be  assumed,  as 
in  the  case  of  a  Russian  collection  on  the  East  Side  of 
New  York;  though  even  here  it  is  a  question  of 
whether  this  is  not  a  good  place  to  prepare  these 
readers  for  a  change  in  library  "folkways" — to  use 
Professor  Sumner's  expressive  word. 

Nor  must  we  forget  that  our  own  ideas  of  pro- 
priety are  constantly  changing.  Take  the  single  in- 
stance of  the  use,  in  literature,  of  words  regarded  as 
profane  or  vulgar.  Most  of  us  can  recollect  a  time 
when  our  acquaintances  were  likely  to  be  shocked  by 
the  occurrence  in  a  book  of  the  expletive  "damn" — 
that  is,  if  it  were  spelled  out.  It  was  generally  held  to 
be  unobjectionable,  or  at  least  less  objectionable,  if  the 
second  and  third  letters  were  replaced  by  a  dash. 
Evidently  this  is  the  purest  convention.  This  and 
worse  words  appear  now,  not  without  shocking  some 
persons,  to  be  sure,  but  certainly  without  shocking 
many  of  those  who  formerly  would  not  have 
tolerated  them.  On  the  other  hand,  it  would  not  be 
difficult  to  instance  words  formerly  common  in  good 
literature  whose  use  would  now  cause  something  of 
a  sensation.  There  are  also  good  people  who  will 
read  unmoved  surprising  words  and  expressions  when 
put  into  the  mouth  of  a  cowboy  or  a  Klondike  miner, 


134  LIBRARY  ESSAYS 

but  whose  gorge  would  rise  if  the  same  words  were 
employed  by  a  writer  in  propria  persona. 

What  is  true  of  words  is  true  also  of  subjects. 
That  which  could  not  be  touched  upon  yesterday  is 
discussed  freely  to-day,  aud  vice-versa.  No  way  of 
dealing  with  the  situation  will  fail  to  offend  some 
one,  and  the  only  approximation  to  satisfaction  will 
be  gained  by  the  use  of  common  sense  applied  to  each 
case  as  it  comes  up. 

Indecency,  of  course,  is  not  the  only  offense 
against  beauty  that  a  book  may  commit.  It  may  be 
trashy,  that  is.  its  subject  matter  or  the  manner  in 
which  it  is  treated  may  be  trivial  and  worthless.  The 
dust  of  the  street  is  neither  beautiful  nor  valuable, 
although  it  may  contain  nothing  injurious  to  health 
or  repulsive  to  the  senses.  The  diction  of  the  book 
may  offend  against  beauty  and  order  by  its  incorrect- 
ness; its  paper,  its  typography,  its  binding,  its  illus- 
trations may  all  be  offensive  to  the  eye.  These  last 
are  mere  matters  of  outward  show,  to  be  sure ;  it  may 
be  necessary  to  disregard  them.  They  are  usually 
reasons  for  excluding  an  edition  rather  than  a  book, 
though  sometimes  the  only  obtainable  edition  offends 
in  so  many  of  these  ways  as  to  make  it  unpurchasable, 
even  if  otherwise  desirable.  So  far  as  they  militate 
against  the  usefulness  of  the  book  rather  than  its 
beauty,  as  in  the  case  of  the  badly  sewed  binding  or 
paper  that  is  comely  but  flimsy,  they  fall  under  the 
head  of  badness  rather  than  that  of  ugliness — they 
are  offenses  against  the  Good  and  not  against  the 
Beautiful.  Such  material  grounds  for  rejection, 
however,  are  not  peculiar  to  books,  and  I  do  not  dwell 
on  them  here.  Ugliness  that  consists  in  mere  trivial- 
ity or  in  incorrectness  of  diction  has  this  in  common 
with  impropriety — it  is  arbitrary  and  conventional. 
With  regard  to  language,  this  is  obvious.     The  fact 


LIBRARIAN  AS  A   CENSOR  135 

that  a  certain  combination  of  sounds  means  one  thing 
in  France  and  another  in  England  and  is  quite  unin- 
telligible perhaps  in  Spain,  is  a  matter  of  jmre  con- 
vention, though  the  convention  is  sanctioned  by  long 
usage.  The  fact  that  the  double  negative  is  very  good 
Greek  and  very  vulgar  English  is  equally  arbitrary. 
These  conventions  have  become  serious  things  with 
us ;  they  are  of  prime  importance  in  the  consideration 
of  books,  but  it  is  desirable  that  we  should  classify 
them  correctly. 

With  regard  to  triviality  the  case  is  not  so  clear, 
yet  I  feel  strongly  that  it  is  a  relative,  not  an  absolute, 
quality.  The  term  should  be  classed  with  that  other 
misused  word — superficiality.  No  book,  of  course, 
and  no  mind  is  absolutely  thorough,  and  the  lesser 
grades  of  knowledge  are  as  important  in  their  place 
as  the  higher.  What  we  should  condemn  is  not  that 
a  man,  or  a  book,  possesses  a  certain  slight  degree  of 
knowledge  or  of  ability,  but  the  fact  that,  possessing 
it,  he  believes  or  represents  it  to  be  a  higher  degree. 
A  man  desires,  we  will  say,  to  memorize  the  Russian 
alphabet,  so  that  he  may  read  the  proper  names  on 
book  titles.  Is  he  to  be  condemned  because  he  knows 
no  more  of  Russian?  Another  wishes  to  wield  a 
hammer  dextrously  enough  to  drive  a  nail  without 
smashing  his  fingers.  Is  he  "superficial''  because  he 
is  not  an  expert  cabinet-maker?  Still  another  has 
learned  to  play  the  piano  well  enough  to  amuse  him- 
self in  his  idle  hours.  Does  his  lack  of  skill  lay  him 
open  to  the  charge  of  "superficiality?"  These  people 
may,  it  is  true,  think  that  they  are  respectively  a  Rus- 
sian scholar,  a  skilled  carpenter,  and  a  good  pianist; 
then  and  then  only  are  they  culpable.  The  "superfi- 
ciality," in  other  words,  consists  in  mistaking  a  lesser 
degree  of  knowledge  for  a  higher  or  in  thinking  that 
the  lesser  degree  suffices  for  something  that  requires 


136  LIBRARY  ESSAYS 

the  higher — not  in  the  mere  limitation  of  the  pos- 
sessor. A  superficial  book  is  that  which,  skimming 
the  surface  of  the  subject,  persuades  the  reader  that 
he  has  gone  into  its  depths;  as  for  the  skimming  it- 
self, that  might  be  quite  adequate  and  sufficient  for 
some  purposes.  So  with  "triviality."'  Nothing  is 
trivial  that  has  an  aim  and  accomplishes  it;  as  for 
the  gradation  of  aims  from  unimportant  up  to  im- 
portant, I  leave  that  to  others.  Who  shall  say  wheth- 
er the  passing  of  an  idle  hour  or  the  addition  of  a 
few  facts  to  one's  store  of  knowledge  is  the  more  im- 
portant? The  idle  hour  may  be  the  recreation  per- 
iod of  a  hard-working  mind,  without  which  it  might 
break  down  from  over-pressure,  leaving  to  less  compe- 
tent minds  the  completion  of  its  useful  labor.  The 
few  facts  might  be  quite  unfruitful.  This  is  why  we 
should  hesitate  to  condemn  a  trivial  book  that  has 
beauty  of  form  or  some  other  positive  virtue  to  com- 
mend it.  Triviality  is  objectionable  only  when  it 
masquerades  as  importance.  Perhaps  it  would  be 
better  to  say :  a  book  that  pretends  to  excellence  along 
any  line  where  it  is  really  valueless  is  a  dangerous 
book.  This  brings  us  back  to  Truth  as  a  criterion  of 
excellence,  for  such  a  book  is  a  hypocritical  or  false 
book,  as  much  as  if  it  definitely  asserted  as  a  fact 
that  which  is  untrue. 

When  a  book,  therefore,  comes  up  as  a  candidate 
for  omission  from  the  purchasing  list,  or  perhaps  for 
exclusion  after  it  has  actually  been  placed  on  the 
shelves,  the  librarian's  first  duty  is  to  inquire  whether 
it  is  objectionable  because  of  falsity,  of  evil  morality 
or  of  impropriety.  The  first  question  may  be  deter- 
minable only  by  reference  to  an  expert.  If  the  second 
is  alleged,  it  is  well  to  inquire  whether  the  supposed 
immorality  of  the  book  be  not  in  fact  simply  impro- 
priety,   and    if    impropriety    is    the    only    objection, 


LIBRARIAN  AS  A   CENSOR  137 

whether  it  is  of  kind  and  amount  likely  to  be  properly 
offensive.  If  the  charge  of  immorality  is  sustained  I 
see  no  place  for  the  book  on  the  shelves  of  a  public 
circulating  library. 

What  has  been  said  may  seem  to  need  rounding 
out  with  specific  illustrations  and  instances,  but  it 
is  particularly  desirable  to  avoid  here  anything  in  the 
nature  of  purely  personal  opinion  and  prejudice.  It 
might  be  possible  of  course  to  define  the  content  of 
certain  well-known  works  by  their  conformity  or  non- 
conformity with  the  canons  above  laid  down,  without 
attempting  to  settle  the  question,  at  the  moment, 
whether  the  degree  of  non-conformity,  if  it  exists,  is 
high  enough  to  make  exclusion  from  a  public  library 
desirable  or  necessary.  From  this  point  of  view 
Othello,  we  will  say,  is  a  play  teaching  a 
moral  lesson,  in  doing  which  it  discusses  sin,  but 
never  with  approval,  expressed  or  implied.  The 
author  uses  words  and  expressions  not  in  accordance 
with  modern  standards  of  propriety,  although  not 
contrary  to  those  of  his  own  time.  In  like  manner 
BoccacuVs  "Decameron"  may  be  characterized  as  a 
collection  of  short  stories  connected  by  thin  narra- 
tive, often  telling  of  wrongdoing  in  a  manner  clearly 
implying  that  it  is  usual  and  unobjectionable,  with 
use  of  words  and  incidents  frequently  contrary  not 
only  to  modern  ideas  of  propriety,  but  also  to  those 
of  the  author's  time,  except  in  the  dissolute  circles 
for  which  the  tales  were  originally  written.  Some  of 
the  stories,  however,  teach  morality,  and  the  literary 
style  and  method  are  beautiful  and  commendable, 
while  the  pictures  of  society  are  truthful.  The  im- 
plications of  customary  vice  are  simply  reflections  of 
life  as  the  author  knew  it.  "Gil  Bias,"  by  Le  Sage, 
continuing  in  this  vein,  we  may  call  a  tale  of  adven- 
ture in  which  everything  is  set  down    as  it   happens, 


138  LIBRARY  ESSAYS 

good,  bad  and  indifferent;  important  and  trivial,  with 
a  hero  who  is  somewhat  of  a  rogue,  although  the 
wickedness  is  incidental  and  is  described  in  such  a 
way  that  the  reader  never  mistakes  it  for  virtue  even 
when  the  writer  tells  it  with  a  relish.  The  implica- 
tion that  wrongdoing  is  common,  though  undoubtedly 
conveyed,  leaves  the  impression  only  that  it  is  com- 
mon among  the  people  and  under  the  circumstances 
of  the  tale,  which  is  undoubtedly  correct. 

It  would  greatly  aid  the  library  censor  if  he  could 
have  annotations  of  this  sort  on  all  bo^ks  intended 
for  promiscuous  public  circulation.  For  this  purpose, 
in  fact,  all  literature  should  be  evaluated  by  the  light 
of  this  one  color  of  the  critical  spectrum.  The  two 
or  three  books  just  noted  possess  at  least  some  of  the 
elements  of  greatness;  yet  good  people  differ  regard- 
ing the  extent  to  which  they  should  be  made  freely 
accessible  to  the  general  public.  I  have  tried  to  set 
down  regarding  them  data  on  which  all  may  agree, 
for  the  purpose  of  impressing  upon  you  the  fact  that 
disagreement  is  not  so  much  regarding  the  data  as 
regarding  the  application  to  them  of  principles  which, 
if  they  have  been  stated  correctly,  are  few,  simple 
and  readily  accepted. 

We  have  been  lightly  skimming  the  surface  of  a 
subject  vital  to  all  who  have  to  do  with  the  produc- 
tion and  distribution  of  books — to  authors,  editors, 
publishers,  booksellers,  and  above  all  to  us  librarians. 
The  ranks  of  readers  are  swelling  to-day;  it  is  our 
boast  that  we  are  doing  our  best  to  swell  them.  They 
are  recruited  from  classes  whose  literature — if  we 
may  so  extend  the  term — has  been  oral  rather  than 
written,  whose  standards  of  propriety  are  sometimes 
those  of  an  earlier  and  grosser  age,  whose  ideas  of 
right  and  wrong  are  beclouded  by  ignorance  and  dis- 
torted by  prejudice.     And  at  the  same  time  hosts  of 


LIBRARIAN    AS    A    CENSOR  139 

our  people,  with  little  background  of  hereditary  re- 
finement to  steady  them,  have  become  suddenly  rich, 
"beyond  the  dreams  of  avarice."  The  shock  has  up- 
set their  ideas  and  their  standards.  Riches  have  come 
so  suddenly  and  so  vastly  even  to  the  educated, 
to  those  whose  culture  dates  back  for  generations, 
that  it  has  overturned  their  ideals  also.  Our  litera- 
ture is  menaced  both  from  below  and  from  above. 
Books  that  distinctly  commend  what  is  wrong,  that 
teach  how  to  sin  and  tell  how  pleasant  sin  is,  some- 
times with  and  sometimes  without  the  added  sauce  of 
impropriety,  are  increasingly  popular,  tempting  the 
author  to  imitate  them,  the  publishers  to  produce, 
the  booksellers  to  exploit.  Thank  heaven  they  do  not 
tempt  the  librarian.  Here  at  last  is  a  purveyor  of 
books  who  has  no  interest  in  distributing  what  is  not 
clean,  honest,  and  true.  The  librarian  may,  if  he 
will — and  he  does — say  to  this  menacing  tide,  "Thus 
far  shalt  thou  go  and  no  farther." 


HOW  TO  RAISE  THE  STANDARD  OF  BOOK 
SELECTION* 

If  a  man  is  to  improve  himself,  he  must  first  realize 
his  own  deficiencies;  in  other  words,  he  must  know 
what  he  ought  to  be,  and  hoAV  and  in  what  degree  he 
falls  short  of  it. 

First,  then,  what  are  the  best  books;  and  do  we 
get  them? 

"Best"  here  as  always  is  a  relative  term ;  what  is 
best  for  one  may  not  be  best  for  another,  or  for  all. 
We  hear  "good  books"  gravely  recommended  to  people 
who  will  not  read  them,  and  who  con  Id  not  extract 
the  good  from  them  if  they  did  read  them.  When 
the  book  fits  the  man,  provided  he  is  a  good  man,  it 
is  a  good  book,  ipso  facto. 

You  remember  the  tale  of  the  rural  parish  priest 
at  dinner  with  his  bishop.  The  host,  desiring  to  poke 
a  little  quiet  fun,  asked  him  whether  it  were  lawful 
to  baptize  a  man  in  soup.  "I  should  make  a  distinc- 
tion," calmly  answered  the  priest;  "if  it  were  good 
thick  soup,  I  should  say  not;  if  it  were  wishy-washy 
stuff  like  this  we  are  eating,  it  would  be  quite  prop- 
er." 

So  long  as  we  do  not  realize  that  the  same  literary 
consistency  is  not  adapted  both  to  nutrition  and  to 
immersion  we  shall  not  be  able  to  decide  on  what  are 
the  best  books. 

But  is  there  no  general  line  of  division  between 
bad  and  good  books? 

I  can  give  but  a  few,  but  I  venture  to  lay  down 

*  Read  at  a  meeting  of  the  library  commissions  of  the  New  England 
States,  Hartford,   Conn..,   February  11,   1909. 


142  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

one  or  two  simple  rules  for  testing.     My  tests  would 
be— 

(1)  The  test  of  language.  No  book  can  be  good 
that  is  not  written  in  correct  English.  By  this  I 
mean,  of  course,  that  the  author  himself  must  speak 
correctly;  his  characters  may  be  ignorant  persons 
and  he  will  naturally  make  them  talk  accordingly. 

(2)  The  test  of  simplicity  and  clearness.  No  book 
can  be  good  whose  author  expresses  himself  in  words 
that  are  too  large  for  his  subject  or  in  sentences  that 
are  so  involved  that  they  cannot  be  easily  understood. 

(3)  The  best  of  good  taste.  No  book  can  be  good 
whose  author  uses  words  or  expressions  that  would 
not  be  used  by  cultivated  people. 

(4)  The  test  of  truth.  No  book  can  be  good  whose 
subject  matter  is  false;  or,  in  case  of  fiction,  whose 
manner  of  telling  is  such  as  to  make  it  seem  absurdly 
improbable.  The  plot  of  the  book  may,  it  is  true, 
lack  probability.  It  may  be  frankly  improbable  like 
a  fairy  tale,  but  the  author  must  not  seem  to  lose 
faith  in  it  himself,  and  no  matter  how  impossible  his 
foundation  the  structure  that  he  builds  on  it  must 
hold  together. 

I  venture  to  say  that  if  a  book  survives  these 
tests — if  it  is  simply  and  clearly  expressed  in  good 
English  and  in  the  best  taste  and  is  consistently  put 
together — it  cannot  be  a  bad  book  so  far  as  style  goes. 

So  far  as  the  subject  matter  of  the  book  is  con- 
cerned, my  test  would  be  simply  that  of  its  effect  on 
the  reader.  If  a  book  makes  the  reader  want  to  be 
mischievous,  foolish  or  criminal — to  be  a  silly  or  bad 
man  or  woman,  or  if  it  tends  to  make  him  do  his 
daily  work  badly,  it  is  a  bad  book  and  all  the  worse 
in  this  case  if  it  is  interesting  and  fascinating  in  style. 
But  even  here  the  trouble  is  largely  in  the  manner  of 
treatment.     A  book  may  tell  of  crime  and  criminals 


STANDARDS    OF    BOOK   SELECTION     143 

in  such  a  way  as  to  make  the  reader  detest  both  or 
feel  an  attraction  toward  both.  In  this  case,  as  the 
scripture  says,  "Ye  shall  know  them  by  their  fruits." 
If  a  book  sends  a  boy  out  to  be  a  burglar,  it  is  bad; 
if  it  impels  him  to  take  a  crying  child  by  the  hand  and 
lead  it  home,  it  is  good.  And  here  let  me  say  that 
this  compelling  power,  this  effective  result  of  a  book 
should  speak  in  its  favor  though  all  other  tests  be 
against  it,  Musicians  tell  us  that  a  great  composer 
may  write  a  work  that  breaks  every  rule  of  harmony 
and  yet  be  a  work  of  genius.     Genius  knows  no  rules. 

So  much  for  the  general  line  of  cleavage.  Hut  the 
special  may  for  the  moment  exclude  all  the  claims  of 
the  general.  A  community  may  be  in  crying  need  of 
books  on  a  given  subject — pottery  or  rowboats  or  hy- 
giene. This  need  may  or  may  not  be  realized  by  the 
community,  but  its  existence  makes  a  special  class 
of  books  the  best,  for  the  moment,  for  that  commun- 
ity. To  buy  a  good  collection  of  minor  poets  for  a 
town  that  clamors,  or  ought  to  clamor,  for  books  on 
the  electric  industries,  is  to  get  bad  books. 

Now  do  we,  under  our  present  system,  or  lack  of 
system,  in  selection,  get  these  best  books — best  both 
in  the  general  and  in  the  special  sense? 

What  is  the  matter  with  the  books  in  the  average 
small  library?  The  trouble  is  not  generally  that  the 
books  are  bad,  but  that  they  might  easily  be  better, 
and  by  "better'1  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  I  mean 
more  closely  adapted  to  the  legitimate  needs  of  the 
community.  If  we  go  over  the  shelves  of  the  average 
small  library  we  shall  generally  be  able  to  note  the 
following  facts: 

(1)  A  considerable  portion  of  the  books  have  not 
been  taken  out  in  long  periods.  This  can  easily  be 
ascertained  by  examining  the  book-cards  or  dating- 
slips.    Of  course,  the  non-use  of  a  book  does  not  mean 


144  LIBRAEY    ESSAYS 

that  it  should  not  be  in  the  library.  The  fault  may 
be  with  the  readers,  not  with  the  book.  Non-use, 
however,  does  mean  that  something  is  the  matter. 
Either  the  library  public  has  bad  taste  or  is  not  prop- 
erly guided,  or  else  a  mistake  was  made  in  providing 
it  with  this  particular  book. 

1 2 1  A  considerable  number  of  standard  books 
whose  reading  should  be  encouraged  will  not  be  found 
on  the  shelves.  These  books  are  almost  always  part  of 
the  collection,  but  there  are  not  enough  duplicates 
to  supply  the  demand.  At  the>ame  time  it  will  be 
found  that  the  library  is  adding  current  books  of 
doubtful  value. 

(3)  I>ooks  on  large  local  industries — shoemaking- 
pottery,  agriculture — are  often  lacking.  In  such  cases 
there  is  generally  a  lack  of  demand;  but  this  is  be- 
cause the  persons  who  would  read  such  books  have 
learned  by  experience  not  to  look  for  them  in  a  pub- 
lic library. 

(4)  Books  in  the  languages  spoken  by  industrial 
colonies  of  foreigners  in  the  neighborhood  are  usually 
conspicuous  by  their  absence. 

(5)  The  collections  in  classes  where  some  technical 
knowledge  is  necessary  for  selection,  such,  for  in- 
stance, as  the  sciences,  the  arts,  or  history,  often  show 
a  lack  of  intelligence,  or,  at  any  rate,  a  lack  of  sys- 
tem. There  are  badly  written  books  and  books  full 
of  errors;  there  is  lack  of  uniformity  in  grade — an 
advanced  mathematical  work  on  electricity,  for  in- 
stance, and  very  elementary  ones  on  light  and  sound. 

( 6  i  In  particular,  controverted  subjects  are  rep- 
resented in  a  one-sided  way ;  there  may  be  no  way  for 
a  reader  to  get  at  the  Catholic  story  of  the  Protestant 
reformation,  or  the  southern  view  of  the  civil  war,  or 
both  sides  of  the  spelling-reform  or  the  woman-suf- 
frage   movements.      Socialism,    vivisection,    anti-vac- 


STANDARDS   OF    BOOK   SELECTION     145 

cination,  the  negro  question,  prohibition,  the  tariff 
— all  these  and  a  hundred  others  are  represented 
only  in  a  partisan  sense 

(7  )  There  is  too  much  care  about  the  outward  gar!) 
of  decency  and  too  little  about  the  pervading  atmos- 
phere of  morality.  Books  that  describe  in  decorous 
language  ingenious  methods  of  shop-lifting  are  given 
place,  but  you  look  in  vain  for  works  of  lofty  moral 
tone  couched  in  diction  that  is  occasionally  coarse. 

How  far  are  these  faults  due  to  methods  of  book 
selection?  One  of  the  troubles  seems  to  be  that  the 
book-selecting  body  does  not  avail  itself  of  expert  ad- 
vice as  much  as  it  ought.  The  librarian  is  learning, 
to  be  sure,  to  use  lists  and  printed  aids  more  and 
more,  though  they  are  rarely  used  with  discrimina- 
tion; but  supplementary  to  such  lists  as  these,  es- 
pecially since  they  so  largely  lack  the  personal  ele- 
ment, we  need  the  personal  advice  of  experts.  If  tin' 
lists  and  reviews. will  leave  us  in  the  dark  about  the 
man  who  advises  us  to  buy  books  on  engineering  or 
art,  we  must  go  to  someone  who  we  know  under- 
stands these  subjects,  at  least  knows  a  little  more  of 
them  than  we  do  ourselves.  There  are,  in  general, 
two  grades  of  expert  advice.  The  first  is  that  re- 
ceived from  the  man  who  is  personally  familiar  with 
the  current  literature  of  his  specialty,  who  watches 
the  books  as  they  appear  and  who  sends  to  the  library 
the  titles  that  he  thinks  it  ought  to  have.  This  grade 
of  expert  service  is  very  difficult  to  obtain.  1  have 
found  few  men  in  my  experience  who  are  able  and 
willing  to  give  it.  Those  who  have  the  good-will  and 
the  time  have  usually  not  the  knowledge;  those  who 
have  the  knowledge  are  busy  men  who  cannot  give 
the  time. 

The  second  grade  of  expert  aid  is  that  which  pro- 
nounces on  concrete  cases,  which  decides  whether  a 


146  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

given  book  (either  from  inspection  of  the  mere  title 
or  of  the  volume  itself)  is  suitable  for  the  library. 
This  kind  of  aid  is  not  difficult  to  obtain,  and  there 
are  persons  in  almost  every  place  qualified  in  some 
degree  to  give  it.  It  requires,  however,  a  preliminary 
selection  and  generally  the  obtaining  of  books  on  ap- 
proval, which  is  easier  in  a  large  place  than  a  small 
one. 

The  library  is  only  one  of  various  institutions 
that  must  use  expert  aid  of  this  kind.  The  same 
limitations  apply  to  all.  Take,  for  instance,  the  work 
of  reference,  the  cyclopedia,  we  will  say.  Its  editor 
cannot  write  of  his  own  knowledge  the  articles  on 
Venezuela,  and  open-hearth  steel,  and  Plato.  He 
must  rely  on  the  information,  direct  or  secondhand,  of 
experts.  But  he  cannot  allow  his  experts  to  write  his 
cyclopedia.  Some  cyclopedias  are  written  very  near- 
ly in  that  way,  and  they  are  not  the  best.  The  ex- 
pert must  be  coached  before  he  does  his  work  and  the 
work  must  be  edited  when  finished.  It  is  on  the  prop- 
er combination  of  expert  and  editorial  work  that  the 
value  of  the  finished  volumes  will  depend.  So  it  is 
with  library  selection.  The  librarian  is  the  editor  of 
a  big  cyclopedia  of  thousands  of  volumes.  He  must 
have  expert  aid  in  selection,  but  he  must  not  allow 
his  experts  to  select  the  library  uncontrolled.  They 
must  be  instructed  beforehand,  and  their  advice  must 
be  carefully  considered  after  it  has  been  given.  It 
must,  in  short,  be  edited.  This  brings  us  to  the  con- 
sideration that  we  have  ultimately  to  face  in  discus- 
sing any  phase  of  human  activity — the  question  of 
personality.  If  the  librarian  and  the  book  commit- 
tee are  incompetent  and  believe  themselves  to  be 
competent— then  the  collection,  in  spite  of  all  efforts, 
will  reflect  their  faults— it  will  be  intolerant,  or  triv- 
ial or  ill-balanced. 


STANDARDS   OF   BOOK   SELECTION     147 

Much,  therefore,  depends  upon  the  actual  book 
selector  for  the  library.  Should  this  be  the  librarian, 
or  a  committee  of  the  trustees,  or  the  board  itself,  or 
an  advisory  committee  of  outsiders?  Probably  the 
best  results  are  obtained  through  a  preliminary  selec- 
tion made  by  the  librarian  with  the  aid  of  lists  and 
the  advice  of  individual  experts — not  committees — as 
suggested  above,  and  then  submitted  to  sonic  person 
or  committee  representing  the  Board  of  trustees. 
This  places  the  final  responsibility  where  it  belongs 
— on  the  trustees;  but  with  a  satisfactory  librarian, 
the  duties  of  the  reviewing  committee  would  consist 
chiefly  of  deciding  on  matters  of  policy — rarely  of 
considering  individual  titles.  It  would  decide,  for  in- 
stance, on  how  closely  fiction  is  to  be  censored,  on 
how  far  the  library  is  to  go  in  the  purchase  of  recent 
fiction,  on  the  extent  to  which  foreign  languages  are 
to  be  recognized,  on  the  purchase  and  duplication  of 
text-books,  on  the  policy  of  the  library  with  regard  to 
denominational  religious  works  or  of  controversial 
books  generally — and  so  on. 

Going  back  for  a  moment  to  the  question  of  ex- 
perts, probably  the  most  difficult  advice  to  procure, 
with  any  degree  of  satisfaction,  is  regarding  fiction, 
whether  in  English  or  in  foreign  languages.  It  has 
been  said  that  one  may  approve  a  book  simply  on  the 
author's  name,  or  even  on  that  of  the  publisher,  and 
this  is  still  true  in  isolated  cases,  but  in  these  days, 
when  both  author  and  publisher  are  continu- 
ally trying  experiments,  continually  varying  stand- 
ards and  style,  each  book  must  be  dealt  with 
individually.  I  do  not  see  how  one  can  decide 
whether  a  given  novel  should  or  should  not  be  bought 
for  a  library  without  reading  it  through  from  cover 
to  cover  or  hearing  a  report  from  someone  who  has 
so  read  it  and  who  understands  the  wants  and  limita- 


148  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

tions  of  the  American  public  library.  This  is  a  line, 
it  seems  to  me,  along  which  great  improvement  in  our 
selection  is  possible;  but  I  confess  I  do  not  see  my 
way  t<>  an  immediate  solution  of  the  problem.  Pos- 
sibly this  is  a  good  opportunity  to  say  a  word  for  a 
method  of  testing  the  adequacy  of  one's  collection 
which  lias  scarcely  been  used  as  it  deserves.  One  of 
the  most  difficult  things  for  a  librarian  to  ascertain 
is  whether  his  collection  is  properly  distributed 
among  the  different  classes,  and  by  this  I  mean,  as 
before,  distributed  in  accordance  with  the  legitimate 
requirements  of  the  community.  It  is  not  possible  to 
find  by  a  statistical  method  exactly  what  people  need, 
but  it  is  possible  to  find  out  what  they  want,  as  in- 
dicated by  the  kind  of  books  that  they  read.  The 
statistical  record  of  this  will  be  found  in  the  class 
percentages  of  circulation.  Whether  or  not  the  libra- 
ry is  equipped  to  supply  this  need  is  indicated  by  the 
class  percentages  of  books  on  the  shelves.  A  com- 
parison of  these  two  percentage  tables  is  always  most 
interesting  to  the  book  selector.  It  does  not  enable 
him  automatically  to  select  books,  but  it  does  indicate 
points  for  fruitful  investigation.  To  take  some  actual 
cases,  I  find  a  library  with  four  per  cent  of  history 
and  six  per  cent  of  literature  on  the  shelves,  whereas 
the  corresponding  circulation  percentages  are  five  and 
seven.  This  is  prima  facie  evidence  that  the  collec- 
tions in  those  two  subjects  are  used  rather  more  than 
the  others  and  could  well  be  increased.  In  cases 
where  it  is  not  desirable  to  encourage  circulation  in 
a  given  class,  such  an  indication  should  evidently 
meet  with  no  response.  The  circulation  of  fiction  al- 
ways runs  far  beyond  its  proportion,  and  it  is  neither 
proper  nor  desirable  for  the  library  to  try  to  keep  up. 
Thus  in  three  libraries  where  the  percentage  of  adult 


STANDARDS    OF    BOOK    SELECTION     149 

fiction  on  the  shelves  is  20,  19  and  17,  respectively,  1 
find  the  corresponding  circulation  percentages  to  be 

34,  35  and  l'7.  What,  let  us  ask  ourselves,  are  library 
statistics  fop?  Is  all  the  labor  concerned  iu  their  col- 
lection and  assemblage  to  result  simply  in  a  table  that 
is  to  he  glanced  at  for  a  moment  with  more  or  less 
interested  curiosity,  or  do  we  intend  to  do  something 
with  them?  It  sometimes  seems  that  the  foreign  re- 
proach that  we  Americans  care  only  for  money,  which 
we  are  properly  disposed  to  resent,  is  partly  justified 
by  the  fact  that  the  only  statistics  that  appear  to 
mean  anything  to  us  are  financial.  When  a  man 
learns  that  he  is  living  beyond  his  income  or  that  he 
is  getting  a  smaller  per  cent  for  his  investments  than 
his  neighbor,  or  that  the  man  at  the  desk  next  to  him 
is  receiving  a  larger  salary  for  doing  the  same  work, 
he  does  not  sit  still  and  say,  "Ah:  how  interesting!" 
He  gets  up  and  does  something  about  it.  I  Jut  statis- 
tics that  convict  him  of  all  sorts  of  incompetency  and 
foolishness  along  lines  other  than  monetary  ones,  he 
regards  simply  as  objects  for  intellectual  absorption. 

These  percentages,  of  course,  are  not  the  only  in- 
dications by  which  a  librarian  may  adjust  the  propor- 
tions of  the  (lasses  in  his  collection.  If  his  library 
has  the  reserve  system,  for  instance,  the  call  for  books 
in  circulation  is  an  unfailing  index  of  the  popular  de- 
mand. If  that  demand  is  one  that  should  be  heeded, 
the  number  of  copies  in  the  library  may  well  lie  pro- 
portionate to  the  number  of  names  on  I  lie  reserve  list. 

But  a  librarian  who  keeps  in  continual  touch  with 

the  public  by  contact  with  users  at  the  desk  needs 
none  of  these  somewhat  mechanical  indications.  it 
is  the  inestimable  privilege  of  the  librarian  of  a  small 
library  in  a  small  community  to  know  her  public,  its 
wants,  its  needs,  its  abilities  and  its  limitations  in  a 
way  that   is  denied  to  custodians  of  huge  collections. 


L50  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

In  closing,  let  me  suggest  the  following-  "Don'ts" 
for  selectors  of  library  books: 

(1)  Don't  buy  hooks  that  are  intellectually  far 
above  vour  readers,  in  the  hope  of  improving  their 
minds;  a  man  may  walk  up  stairs,  but  he  can't  jump 
from  the  sidewalk  to  the  roof. 

(2)  Don't  bur  tine  editions  of  books  that  need 
rather  to  be  extensively  duplicated;  better  two  good 
souls  than  one  fine  body. 

(3)  Don't  buy  McGrath  and  McCutcheon  when  you 
have  reserves  on  file  for  Dickens  and  George  Eliot. 

(4)  Don't  buy  biography  in  excess  because  you  are 
fond  of  it  yourself,  when  a  comparison  of  percentages 
shows  that  your  supply  of  travel  or  applied  science 
is  not  up  to  the  demand. 

(5)  Don't  buy  books  in  flimsy  bindings  that  will 
give  out  after  the  first  issue ;  work  should  not  be  done 
in  gauzy  garments. 

(6)  Don't  buy  books  in  very  strong  bindings  when 
their  use  is  to  be  light  and  small;  overalls  are  not 
suitable  for  an  afternoon  tea. 

(7i  Don't  buy  "sets"  and  "libraries;"  they  are 
adulterated  literature,  coffee  mixed  with  chicory. 

(8)  Don't  buy  subscription  books  of  an  agent  at  a 
personal  interview;  it  is  the  agent's  game  not  to  let 
you  think ;  stand  up  for  your  rights  and  think  it  over. 

(9)  Don't  estimate  public  demand  by  its  effect  on 
your  own  patience;  one  persistent  old  gentleman  often 
bulks  larger  than  a  crowd  of  quiet  but  deserving  per- 
sons without  either  push  or  pull. 

(10  j  Don't  buy  books  of  wdiich  you  are  not  in  im- 
mediate need,  when  you  are  morally  certain  that 
copies  in  good  condition  will  be  thrown  on  the  mar- 
kets as  remainders  at  one-quarter  the  original  list 
price 


STANDARDS   OF    BOOK   SELECTION     151 

(11)  Don't  buy  costly  "new  editions"  of  reference 
books  without  assuring  yourself  that  the  newness  Is 
more  than  nominal. 

(12)  Don't  buy  novels  because  you  see  them  ad- 
vertised in  the  trolley  cars. 

( 13)  Lastly — and  this  is  the  most  important  thing 
of  all — don't  get  discouraged.  Our  methods  of  se- 
lecting books,  and  their  results,  doubtless  need  im- 
provement, but  so  do  those  of  all  the  other  libraries 
we  know.  Let  us  try  to  realize  our  deficiencies,  and 
then  try  to  make  this  year's  book  list  just  a  little  bet- 
ter than  the  last.  If  we  can  succeed  in  this,  the  stand- 
ard will  take  care  of  itself. 


SYSTEM  IN  THE  LIBRARY* 

It  has  been  said  by  Mr.  W.  H.  Mallock  that  what 
we  call  labor-organizations  are  mis-named,  because 
their  object  is,  in  most  cases,  the  organization  not  of 
labor,  but  of  idleness.  This  somewhat  cryptic  state- 
ment may  be  understood  to  mean  that  trade  unions 
have  endeavored  usually  not  to  improve  the  meth- 
ods and  results  of  labor,  nor  to  make  its  output  larger 
and  more  satisfactory,  but  rather  to  improve  the  con- 
dition of  the  laboring  man;  to  make  his  life  more 
comfortable  and  his  task  easier,  to  shorten  hours  and 
lessen  output,  and  often,  as  a  result,  to  make  that 
output  of  lower  grade. 

This  will  be  regarded  as  a  base  slander  by  many 
people,  and  it  is  doubtless  exaggerated;  yet  there  is 
an  amount  of  truth  in  it  that  cannot  be  overlooked 
by  any  worker  or  any  combinations  of  workers — 
which  is  the  same  as  saying  that  it  interests  almost 
all  of  us  in  this  country ;  for  the  only  Americans  able 
to  work  who  do  not  work  are  tramps  and  a  very  few 
millionaires.  We  shall  try  to  consider  its  bearing  on 
library  workers,  but  before  doing  so,  it  will  be  well 
to  look  at  it  a  little  longer  in  its  more  general  aspect. 

Those  who  desire  to  improve  the  worker's  condi- 
tion will  justify  themselves  very  properly  on  economic 
grounds  by  saying  that  to  do  this  is  also  to  improve 
the  methods  of  work  and  the  quality  of  the  prod- 
uct. No  one  can  do  good  work  who  is  ill-housed,  un- 
derfed, improperly  clothed  or  overworked.  This  is 
true;  but  it  is  not  also  true  that  if  we  make  it  our 

*  Read    before    the    Missouri    State    library    Association.    Columbia, 
October  28,    1909. 


154  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

primary  aim  to  see  that  the  worker  is  as  comfortable 
as  possible,  to  lift  from  him  all  the  difficulties  and 
burdens  of  his  task,  we  shall  also  improve  his  output 
proportionally.  Rather  should  we  do  away  with  that 
output  altogether.  We  should  simply  be  "organizing 
idleness."  We  may  consider,  as  an  analogy,  the  dif- 
ference between  a  tariff  for  revenue  and  one  for  pro- 
tection. The  total  abolition  of  import  duties  is  im- 
possible, Ave  are  told.  They  are  necessary  for  revenue. 
Even  England,  the  world's  greatest  free-trade  coun- 
try, has  import  duties.  Very  true,  but  the  amount 
of  the  duty  and  the  objects  on  which  it  is  laid  will 
differ  absolutely  according  to  its  purpose.  Again, 
we  will  suppose  that  the  same  company  owns  an  ele- 
vated railway  and  a  surface  trolley  line.  They  will 
naturally,  if  left  to  themselves,  adjust  fares,  speed 
and  stops  on  the  former  so  as  to  induce  a  larger  pro- 
portion of  people  to  travel  by  the  slower  surface  line, 
which  is  less  expensive  to  operate.  If  the  surface  line 
were  owned  by  a  rival  company,  there  would  be  an 
entirely  different  schedule  of  fares,  speed  and  stops 
on  the  elevated  road,  intended  to  crowd  it  with  pas- 
sengers and  to  derive  the  largest  possible  revenue 
from  it  alone. 

In  like  manner,  we  must  doubtless  look  out  for 
the  worker ;  and  he  must  doubtless  look  out  for  him- 
self. His  conditions  of  life  and  work  must  be  made 
such  that  he  will  perform  his  task  as  well  as  possible. 
But  those  conditions  will  be  adjusted  quite  differently 
if  we  regard  the  comfort  of  the  worker  as  the  prime 
object  from  what  they  will  be  if  we  regard  the  excell- 
ence of  the  output  as  the  prime  object  and  the  work- 
er's comfort  as  a  means  to  that  end. 

This  will  bear  statement  in  still  another  way. 
We  are  put  into  this  world  to  do  our  appointed  tasks, 
and  it  is  our  business  to  do  them  as  well  as  we  pos- 


SYSTEM    IN   THE   LIBRARY  155 

sibly  can.  This  means  that  we  must  take  the  proper 
amount  of  rest,  eat  good  food,  keep  happy  and  con- 
tented, and  all  the  rest  of  it.  But  he  who  regards  his 
work  simply  as  a  means  of  furnishing  him  the  where- 
withal to  be  happy,  to  take  expensive  vacations,  live 
in  a  fine  house,  and  so  on,  will  neither  do  his  best 
work,  nor  will  he  enjoy  the  good  things  of  life  as  he 
ought. 

Our  friends,  the  Socialists,  whose  propaganda  is 
receiving  more  attention  from  thoughtful  men  to-day 
than  it  did  a  few  years  ago,  both  because  of  the  truths 
that  it  presents  and  the  menace  that  it  offers  to  our 
present  civilization,  are  making  the  mistake  of  dwell- 
ing upon  the  importance  of  the  worker's  comfort 
rather  than  that  of  the  worker's  improvement.  They 
promise  us  that  we  shall  all  be  in  comfortable  circum- 
stances and  will  have  to  work  only  three  hours  a  day. 
Incidentally,  the  output  is  to  be  better.  But  by  put- 
ting the  matter  thus,  instead  of  the  other  way  about, 
they  have  appealed  to  the  element  of  laziness  that  ex- 
ists in  all  men — they  have  held  out  the  prospect  of 
idleness  instead  of  labor. 

I  have  not  lived  west  of  the  Mississippi  long 
enough  to  know  whether  the  same  conditions  obtain 
here  as  in  the  East;  but  there,  comparing  things  to- 
day with  what  1  remember  of  my  boyhood,  I  seem  to 
see  an  increasing  tendency  among  all  workers  to  put 
self  first  and  work  second.  The  policy  of  "ca'  canny," 
as  they  call  it  in  Scotland — of  "go  easy" — doing  as 
little  as  one  can  and  still  keep  his  job — is  creeping 
in  and  has  secured  a  firm  foothold.  It  is  increasing- 
ly difficult  to  get  any  kind  of  work,  manual  or  men- 
tal, done  really  well — so  well  that  one  feels  like  say- 
ing, "Well  done,  thou  faithful  servant."  And  yet  the 
shirkers  are  all  anxious  to  get  to  the  top;  and  they 
wonder  why  they  do  not.     They  comfort  themselves 


156  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

by  saying  that  success  nowadays  is  solely  a  matter  of 
pull.  But  it  is  not  so.  Look  around  you  and  you 
will  see,  for  the  most  part,  men  in  charge  of  large 
enterprises  who  are  efficient,  and  who  have  put  work 
before  self — men  who  are  engrossed  in  what  they  are 
doing,  who  love  it  and  therefore  do  it  effectively. 

There  never  was  a  baser  slander  than  the  common 
assertion  that  we  Americans  love  money.  If  we 
loved  the  dollar  for  itself  alone,  we  should  never 
sling  it  about  as  we  do.  We  love  the  excitement  and 
the  fun  of  making  money.  Look  at  our  working  mil- 
lionaires! They  want  no  more  money;  they  can  not 
use  what  they  have.  They  enjoy  the  task  of  owning 
and  running  a  great  railway  system,  of  organizing 
and  managing  some  great  industrial  combination. 
We  may  find  it  necessary  to  clip  their  wings  a  little, 
but  we  can  not  call  them  lazy  and  inefficient — they 
make  the  job  too  hard  for  us.  There  is  no  "go  easy" 
policy  here,  and  those  who  favor  it  will  never  get  to 
the  top. 

Let  us  hope  that  this  pernicious  idea  that  self  is 
worth  more  than  work  will  never  find  a  foothold  in 
the  library.  We  see  it  here  and  there,  but  I  believe 
that,  taken  by  and  large,  library  workers  love  their 
tasks  and  that  they  are  efficient  in  proportion  to  that 
love. 

As  our  libraries  are  growing  larger,  our  organ- 
izations more  complex,  it  is,  I  know,  growing  harder 
to  take  a  live  personal  interest  in  the  work,  so  much 
of  it  is  specialized  routine ;  one  feels  like  a  mere  cog- 
wheel in  a  great  machine.  Th  assistant  who  pastes 
labels  or  addresses  postal  cards  in  a  big  library,  finds 
it  harder  to  realize  that  she  is  doing  something  in- 
teresting and  useful  than  the  librarian  of  a  small  li- 
brary who  not  only  performs  these  tasks  but  all  the 
others— meets  her  public,  selects  and  buys  her  books, 


SYSTEM   IN  THE  LIBRARY  L5T 

plans  in  one  way  and  another  for  the  extension  and 
betterment  of  her  work.    Yet  the  rapid,  accurate  and 

efficient  performance  of  the  lesser  task  is  as  impor- 
tant as  that  of  the  greater.  A  label  pasted  awry 
may  ruin  the  library's  reputation  in  the  eye  of  a  cas- 
ual user;  a  mis-sent  card  may  cause  trouble  to  dozens 
of  one's  fellow-assistants.  Routine  work  is  dull  only 
when  one  does  not  understand  its  purport.  Dullness 
is  in  the  worker,  not  in  the  work. 

Are  libraries,  indeed,  introducing  too  much  organ- 
ization into  the  work — is  it  becoming  too  machine- 
like? Now,  it  should  not  be  forgotten  that  there  is 
in  a  machine  something  akin  to  personality — individ- 
uality, at  any  rate,  is  not  too  strong  a  word.  Every 
locomotive  has  tricks  and  characteristics  that  its  en- 
gineer knows  and  sometimes  loves.  He  pats  its  back 
affectionately  and  speaks  of  it  as  "she."  The  idea 
that  to  be  part  of  a  machine  excludes  personality  and 
individual  work  is  all  wrong.  One  can  not  go  career- 
ing about  eccentrically  and  unsystematic-ally ;  the 
very  purpose  of  organization  is  to  stop  all  that;  but 
within  the  limits  of  motion  and  action  assigned  to 
a  person  as  his  part  in  the  larger  motion  and  action 
of  the  machine,  there  is  still  room  for  moving  well  or 
ill,  for  helping  on  the  greater  work  or  antagonizing 
it  and  throwing  it  out  of  order.  If  a  cog-wheel  thinks 
that  it  is  manifesting  its  originality  in  some  merito- 
rious way  by  making  the  whole  machine  creak  ami 
wobble  and  turn  out  an  inferior  product,  that  cog- 
wheel has  power  to  do  just  this;  but  it  should  not 
complain  if  the  machinist  throws  it  into  the  BCrap 
heap. 

Now',  in  the  library,  the  parts  of  our  machine  are 
workers  of  all  kinds;  their  connection  ami  relation- 
ship are  conditioned  and  limited  by  customs,  rules 
and  orders.     To  test  the  desirability  of  these  or  of 


158  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

any  change  in  them  there  is  just  one  question  to  be 
asked;  first,  last  and  all  the  time,  namely — is  this 
for  ourselves  or  for  our  work?  Is  it  merely  to  make 
things  easier  for  the  assistants  or  will  it  improve  the 
work  and  benefit  the  public? 

The  asking  of  this  question  and  its  thoughtful 
consideration  will  puncture  many  a  bubble.  We  will 
take,  if  you  please,  the  question  of  vacations.  Any 
one  who  has  tried  to  make  out  a  vacation  schedule  in 
a  large  library  knows  that,  next  to  making  out  a  reci- 
tation schedule  in  a  large  school  or  college,  it  is  the 
most  vexatious  task  of  the  kind  that  is  given  to  man 
to  do.  Everyone  must  have  a  vacation,  and  every- 
one wants  to  have  it  at  some  time  when  the  efficiency 
of  the  library  will  be  impaired  by  it.  Everyone  wants 
to  go  away  at  once,  and  there  are  times  when  no  one 
wants  to  be  absent.  Any  possible  arrangement  means 
dissatisfaction,  heartburnings,  a  feeling  that  favor- 
itism or  prejudice  has  been  at  work.  Into  the  mind 
of  most  librarians  has,  I  am  sure,  crept  the  sugges- 
tion :  What  is  the  use  of  all  this?  Why  not  close  the 
library  for  a  month?  Is  not  that  done  by  the  schools : 
and  are  not  we,  too,  an  educational  institution? 

The  fact  that  librarians  do  not  yield,  in  this  case, 
to  the  suggestion  of  a  change  that  would  benefit 
them  and  all  their  assistants,  is,  of  course,  due  to  the 
obviousness  of  the  other  fact  that  it  would  be  bad  for 
the  public. 

This  test  of  the  public  advantage  may  be  applied 
to  the  whole  question  of  system  in  the  library — of 
how  much  system  is  good,  and  what  kind  and  how  it 
shall  be  determined  and  applied.  When  a  man  comes 
in  contact  witli  a  library  rule  that  incommodes  him 
personally,  he  is  apt  to  deride  it  impatiently  as  "red 
tape."  When  he  finds  absence  of  a  rule  where  he 
would  have  benefited  by  it.  he  concludes  that  the  libra- 


SYSTEM   IN   THE   LIBRARY  159 

ry  is  in  "chaos"'  or  "confusion."     Now.  there  should 

evidently  be  neither  one  nor  the  other  of  these,  al- 
though we  cannot  allow  the  personal  convenience  of 
a  single  user  to  be  the  test — our  system  should  not 
exist  for  itself  alone,  nor  should  we  try  to  get  along 
without  system  altogether.  There  should  be  just  so 
much  and  of  just  such  a  kind  as  will  result  in  the 
maximum  degree  of  service  rendered  to  the  public. 

The  individual  user  is  quite  wrong,  of  course,  in 
condemning  a  regulation  that  annoys  him  personally, 
for  this  reason  alone;  but  if  we  should  find  that  it 
annoyed  all  other  users  as  well  without  other  advan- 
tage than  the  saving  of  some  trouble  to  the  library 
assistant,  he  would,  I  conceive,  be  quite  right  in  call- 
ing it  ''red  tape."  This  term  is  applied  primarily  to 
annoying  official  restrictions  that  have  no  use  what- 
ever, but  we  may  well  extend  it  to  restrictions  that 
benefit  the  administrator  without  improving  the  ad- 
ministration. Rules,  customs  and  manners  of  pro- 
cedure in  a  library,  whether  they  say  "thou  shalt"  or 
"thou  shalt  not"  are  of  two  kinds — those  addressed 
to  the  library  staff  and  those  addressed  to  the  pub- 
lic. Both,  however,  are  intended  to  enable  the  pub- 
lic to  get  more  good  out  of  the  library.  The  mem- 
bers of  the  staff  are  told  to  do  certain  things  and  not 
to  do  others,  because  this  will  make  it  easier  for  the 
users  of  the  library  to  get  what  they  want.  The  lat- 
ter in  turn  are  bidden  to  do  this  and  forbidden  to 
do  that — not,  as  some  of  them  seem  to  think,  to  make 
the  librarian's  work  easier  or  to  save  him  trouble — 
but  to  throw  the  library  open  wider  tit  their  fellows. 
System  of  this  kind  may  bear  very  hard  on  the  in- 
dividual user;  he  may  chafe,  for  instance,  at  any 
restriction  in  the  number  of  books  that  he  is  allowed 
to  borrow — but  if  no  such  restriction  existed,  the 
privileges  of  his  fellow  borrowers  would  be  curtailed 


1G0  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

thereby.  He  may  grumble  because  the  time  limit  on 
his  book  has  expired  before  he  has  finished  reading 
it,  unmindful  of  the  fact  that  some  of  his  fellow 
readers  are  anxiously  waiting-  for  it,  But  if  the  book 
in  his  possession  is  not  wanted  by  anybody;  if  there 
are  other  such  unused  books  in  the  library  that  he 
wants,  should  he  not  have  and  keep  them?  Assuredly. 
Every  library  should  make  arrangements  whereby 
none  of  its  books  should  be  kept  from  use  to  stand 
idly  on  the  shelves.  Our  test  of  public  usefulness 
declares  as  decisively  for  this  as  it  does  for  the  parti- 
tion of  privilege  in  the  case  of  more  than  one  anxious 
borrower. 

To  return  to  that  part  of  the  library  machine  that 
affects  the  library  staff,  I  have  many  times  heard 
assistants  complain  of  incidents  of  organization  and 
systematization  that  seemed  to  them  too  much  like 
those  in  vogue  in  commercial  institutions.  Now  it 
may  be  freely  admitted  that  there  is  a  difference  be- 
tween the  library  and  the  store  or  the  factory,  or 
more  generally  between  any  institution  for  the  Dub- 
lic  good  and  one  for  private  gain.  In  the  former  the 
public  advantage  is  the  prime  object,  and  to  attain  it 
we  must  often  consult  the  comfort  or  convenience  of 
the  administrators.  In  the  latter,  the  advantage  of 
the  administrators  is  the  prime  object,  and  to  gain 
it  thev  are  generally  forced  to  consult  the  comfort 
and  convenience  of  the  public.  The  primary  and  sec- 
ondary elements  are  reversed,  but  they  exist  in  each. 
Both  the  department  store  and  the  library  must  look 
out  for  the  public.  It  is  the  library's  business  to  do 
so,  and  it  is  in  the  store's  business  advantage  to  do 
the  same. 

It  is  hard  to  see,  therefore,  why  any  kind  of  sys- 
tem that  will  make  a  store  work  better  is  not  worth 
looking  into  by  a  librarian.     The  systematization  in 


SYSTEM    IN   THE   LIBRARY  1G1 

the  staff  of  an  up-to-date,  modern  business  organiza- 
tion, and  in  its  work,  is  a  continual  surprise  to  him 
who  has  not  looked  into  such  things  for  a  score  of 
years.  The  stores  and  the  factories  are  ahead  of  li- 
brarians in  this  respect,  and  we  may  as  well  admit  it. 
After  all,  this  is  natural.  What  is  to  one's  business 
advantage  is  always  done  better  than  what  is  mere- 
ly one's  business.  But  there  is  no  reason  why  we 
should  not  study  these  better  methods  and  imitate 
those  that  arc   worth   copying. 

Take  one  little  example.  In  a  factory  the  raw 
material  is  followed  statistically  from  its  purchase 
to  its  sale  as  a  finished  product;  and  even  after  its 
sale  its  performances  are  watched.  The  owner  can 
find  out,  when  he  wants  to  do  so,  whether  that  par- 
ticular article  made  or  lost  money  for  the  firm,  and 
how  much,  and  why;  whether  it  gave  satisfaction  to 
the  purchaser,  and  if  not,  why  not;  to  what  its  ex- 
cellence or  deficiencies  were  due,  whether  to  the  qual- 
ities of  the  raw  material  or  the  methods  of  manufac- 
ture. How  many  librarians  can  similarly  ascertain 
whether  the  purchase  of  a  given  invoice  of  books  was 
profitable  to  the  library  or  not,  taking  into  account 
the  number  and  duration  of  their  issues,  the  time 
lost  and  the  money  spent  in  mending  and  re-binding 
them,  and  so  on?  How  many  can  tell  you  whether 
those  books  gave  satisfaction  to  the  users,  in  their 
bindery,  typography,  and  paper;  whether  the  reader 
found  them  hard  on  his  eyes,  easily  soiled,  difficult 
to  hold  open — and  whose  fault  it  was,  the  publisher's^ 
the  binder's  or  the  mender's?  This,  too.  is  merely 
the  material  and  physical  side  of  the  question — all 
that  the  manufacturer  or  the  merchant  needs  to  con- 
sider. We  librarians  say  we  are  on  a  loftier  plane; 
we  purvey  ideas.  So  we  do.  How  many  of  us  then 
can  say  what  was  the  mental  and  moral  effect  on  our 


L62  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

community  of  the  books  added  last  year,  as  compared 
with  those  added  the  year  before?  How  many  of  us 
know  even  whether  the  readers  liked  the  books  of  one 
year  better  than  those  of  another?  Again;  the  in- 
dividual worker  in  a  good  factory,  the  travelling 
salesman  in  a  good  mercantile  house,  is  watched  sta- 
tistically. Ilis  employers  can  tell  just  how  profitable 
his  work  is  to  them.  If  the  failure  of  an  operation, 
or  the  loss  of  custom  in  a  town,  is  due  to  him,  they 
know  it,  and  if  his  service  continues  unprofitable,  he 
is  replaced.  How  many  librarians  watch  the  work 
of  individual  members  of  the  staff  with  such  detail? 
Suppose  at  the  end  of  six  months'  service,  an  assistant 
were  confronted  with  statistical  evidence  that  she  had 
mischarged  ten  books,  made  eight  bad  mistakes  in 
accessioning,  written  twenty  catalog  cards  that  had 
to  be  replaced  and  caused  four  complaints  by  her 
bearing  at  the  desk?  Suppose  she  were  thereupon 
given  notice  that  she  must  do  better  or  go;  what 
would  she  say?  I  think  I  know.  She  would  say  that 
the  library  was  run  just  like  a  department  store. 
And  she  would  be  quite  right;  only,  instead  of  being 
derogatory  to  the  library  as  it  would  be  intended,  her 
remark  would  be  a  compliment.  It  is  time  that  we 
should  carefully  discriminate  between  what  is  com- 
mercial, in  commercial  institutions,  and  what  simply 
makes  for  orderliness  and  efficiency. 

Now,  we  may  consider  three  things,  belonging  to 
a  given  institution,  that  every  employee  of  that  insti- 
tution has  in  his  care.  If  they  are  properly  con- 
served the  institution  will  be  efficiently  administered, 
and  the  visible  machinery  for  conserving  them  con- 
stitutes system.  They  are  time,  property  and  reputa- 
tion. A  large  part  of  the  system  under  which  any  in- 
stitution is  conducted  has  for  its  object  the  utiliza- 
tion of  every  bit  of  time.     We  Americans,  with  all 


SYSTEM    IN   THE   LIBRARY  163 

our  hustling  are  great  wasters  of  time.  Workers  do 
nothing,  not  so  much  in  periods  of  actually  shirking 
or  laziness  as  in  getting  started,  in  passing  from  one 
task  to  another,  in  fruitless  pottering  about,  in  en- 
deavoring  to  decide  some  unimportant  question  of  de- 
tail and  in  one  or  another  of  a  thousand  different 
ways  when  they  seem  to  themselves  to  be  at  work, 
while  they  really  are  doing  nothing  useful.  As  for 
talking,  it  is  the  bane  of  many  different  icinds  of  work. 
I  am  inclined  to  think  that  all  work  should  be  done 
in  silence.  Possibly,  however,  this  would  be  a  mis- 
take, for  an  occasional  word  keeps  workers  alive  and 
in  good  humor  where  absolute  silence  is  not  neces- 
sary. It  is,  however,  difficult  to  stop  with  a  word. 
Words  group  themselves  into  phrases,  phrases  into 
sentences  and  sentences  into  conversation,  and  the 
workers  who  assert  convincingly  that  they  get  on 
exactly  as  well  while  they  are  talking,  succeed  in  cut- 
ting in  half,  not  only  their  own  sum  total  of  useful 
achievement,  but  that  of  the  annoyed  toilers  any- 
where within  earshot.  System  surely  requires  close 
conservation  of  valuable  time;  by  promptness,  by 
quickness,  by  keeping  the  cobwebs  from  one's  brain, 
and  above  all,  by  silence,  relative  if  not  absolute. 

The  property  that  the  librarian  is  expected  to  con- 
serve consists  of  books — the  material  in  which  he 
works  and  with  which  he  is  expected  to  produce  his 
effects,  and  of  money  and  objects — buildings,  furni- 
ture and  utensils — intended  to  aid  him  in  handling 
the  books  properly  and  in  getting  them  and  the  users 
together.  The  Philadelphia  alderman  who  proposed 
to  do  away  with  the  buildings,  furniture  and  staff  of 
the  library  altogether,  spend  the  money  for  books, 
dump  these  on  the  city-hall  floor,  and  let  the  public 
choose,  may  have  been  somewhat  crude  in  his  ideas; 
but  he  at  least  understood  that  books  are  the  basis 


164  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

of  a  library  and  that  librarians  and  buildings  are  but 
subsidiary.  His  attitude  was  vastly  more  intelligent 
than  that  of  some  persons  who  appear  to  think  that 
a  good  librarian  in  a  fine  building  ought  to  produce 
satisfactory  results  without  any  books  at  all.  The 
librarian,  then,  must  provide  above  all  for  the  care 
and  preservation  of  the  books.  If  his  library  is  on 
open  shelves  it  must  assure  careful  watch  against 
thievery;  it  must  insure,  by  an  adequate  charging  sys- 
tem, the  due  return  of  borrowed  volumes;  it  must  see 
that  the  physical  structure  of  the  book  is  protected, 
and  repaired  when  needful;  it  must  watch  and  count 
the  books  at  intervals  to  see  that  they  are  all  on  the 
shelves.  This  last  means  the  taking  of  a  regular  and 
careful  inventory — the  bane  of  the  average  librarian. 
Yet  how  can  he  shirk  it?  Books  are  valuable  prop- 
erty entrusted  to  his  care.  If  he  were  custodian  of 
money  or  funds  he  would  not  be  let  off  year  after  year 
with  the  statement  that  the  labor  of  ascertaining  how 
much  remained  in  his  possession  Avas  greater  than  it 
was  worth.  One  may  omit  to  inventory  his  private 
collection,  just  as  he  may  omit  to  count  the  mone}'  in 
his  purse,  if  he  chooses,  not  that  of  others.  And  if 
it  is  his  duty  to  see  that  the  quantity  of  his  collection 
remains  unimpaired,  it  is  equally  so  to  see  to  the 
quality.  A  library  system  that  counts  the  books 
carefully,  but  esteems  a  torn  and  filthy  volume  as 
good  a  unit  as  one  in  proper  condition,  will  no  longer 
pass  muster. 

There  are  dirty  books  on  too  many  library  shelves. 
Such  libraries  are  deficient  in  the  kind  of  system  that 
preserves  prorjerty  efficiently.  As  for  the  mechanical 
plant  of  the  library,  the  building  that  houses  it,  with 
its  fittings  and  furniture,  a  proper  system,  of  course, 
requires  that  these  be  kept  constantly  in  good  condi- 
tion.    Now,  we  Americans  are  impatient  of  detail : 


SYSTEM    IN   THE    LIBRARY  L65 

we  like  to  do  things  in  a  large  way  and  then  let  them 
lake  care  of  themselves.  While  the  Frenchman  or 
the  Englishman  watches  his  roads  or  pavements  day 
by  day  and  never  allows  them  to  get  out  of  repair,  we 
build  expensive  roadways  and  leave  them  alone  until 
they  are  in  disgraceful  condition— whereupon  we 
tear  them  up  and  rebuild  them,  While  the  foreigner 
builds  his  cities,  stone  by  stone  and  street  by  stl 
so  that  t  hey  are  picturesque  and  beautiful,  we  lei  oui  > 
spring  up  as  they  will,  slum  jostling  palace,  and  fac- 
tory elbowing  church,  until  finally  we  form  grandiose 
projects  of  reconstruction,  cutting  avenues  here  and 
making  parts  there — projects  which  may  be  carried 
out  and  may  remain  on  paper.  So  I  have  seen  taste- 
ful and  expensive  library  buildings  allowed  to  grow 
grimy  and  dilapidated  day  by  day  through  lack  of  a 
systematic  plan  for  renovation  and  re-pair.  Some 
day  the  authorities  will  wake  up  and  there  will  be 
reconstruction  and  redecoration  in  plenty — to  be  fol- 
lowed by  another  era  of  slow  decay. 

The  third  entity  that  an  efficient  system  must 
enable  the  librarian  to  conserve  is  evanescent  and 
almost  indefinable.  It  is  difficult  to  bring  system  to 
bear  upon  it  at  all,  and  yet  its  preservation  is  of  the 
very  highest  importance  of  all,  because  without  it 
the  librarian  cannot  do  the  work  in  his  community 
that  every  good  Librarian  is  trying  to  do.  Reputa- 
tion is  a  tickle  thing,  indeed.  Gained  sometimes  in 
a  happy  moment,  it  may  persist  for  long  years,  suc- 
cessfully defying  all  assaults;  achieved  elsewhere  by 
decades  of  strenuous  application  and  scrupulous  ob- 
servance, it  may  vanish  in  a  day  as  the  result  of 
some  petty  act  of  forgetfulness  or  of  the  stupidity 
of  a  passing  moment.  None  the  less  is  it  the  duty 
of  the  head  of  every  great  institution  to  strive  con 
tinually  to  attain  and  maintain   it.;  to  increase  it  if 


166  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

possible  and  to  guard  it  jealously.  There  he  is  in 
the  hands  of  his  subordinates  and  such  system  as  he 
may  bring  to  bear  may  and  should  be  directed  toward 
creating  and  keeping  alive  within  them  a  proper 
esprit  de  corps.  The  library  that  succeeds  in  creat- 
ing a  public  impression  that  it  and  all  connected  with 
it  are  honestly  trying  to  be  of  public  service,  to  win 
public  esteem,  and  to  gain  a  place  in  the  public  heart, 
has  two-thirds  of  its  work  done  already.  Its  burden 
is  rolled  down  hill  instead  of  up. 

We  boast  that  in  our  country  public  opinion  is 
all  powerful;  but  we  are  often  apt  to  regard  public 
opinion  as  we  do  the  weather.  Its  balmy  gales  and 
its  destructive  vortices,  its  gentle  dews  and  its  devas- 
tating torrents,  are  alike,  we  think,  beyond  our  power 
to  regulate.  Yet,  though  public  opinion  may  be  un- 
just or  capricious,  it  is  usually  level-headed.  So  the 
library  that  covets  that  good  reputation  which  pub- 
lic opinion  alone  can  give  it,  must  so  act  as  to  de- 
serve that  good  opinion.  And  as  one  broken  cog  will 
throw  a  whole  machine  out  of  gear,  so  one  assistant 
who  does  not  realize  his  or  her  responsibilities  in  this 
matter  may  mar  a  library's  reputation,  otherwise 
well-earned.  It  is  hard  luck,  indeed,  that  a  libra- 
rian, who  with  the  majority  of  his  staff  has  striven 
long  and  well  to  earn  the  public  good-will,  should 
see  it  forfeited  by  the  thoughtlessness  or  ill-temper 
of  some  one  of  his  staff.  This,  however,  is  the  way 
of  onr  world  with  its  multiple  connections.  None  of 
us  may  live  for  himself  alone;  we  stand  or  fall  with 
others,  and  the  smallest  bit  of  orange  peel  may  bring 
down  the  mightiest  athlete  to  the  pavement. 

How  may  the  librarian,  or  anyone  else,  bring  sys- 
tem to  bear  on  such  an  evanescent  thing  as  this?  It 
is  a  hard  matter,  indeed.  But  can  it  be  denied  that 
a  well-oiled  library  machine,  one  that  is  quickly  res- 


SYSTEM    IN   THE   LIBRARY  167 

ponsiye  to  direction  and  control,  one  whose  parts  are 

as  perfect  in  themselves  and  as  perfectly  connected 
as  may  be,  is  least  likely  to  suffer  from  unfortunate 
accidents?  A  librarian  whose  bad  judgment — or 
whose  kindness  of  heart,  perhaps — has  misled  him 
into  admitting  into  his  machine  one  false  cog  may 
find  to  his  sorrow  that  this  will  slip  at  the  critical 
time,  betraying  both  him  and  the  whole  engine  that 
he  had  hoped  to  wield  for  good.  Here  no  one  kind  of 
system,  no  particular  detail,  alone  suffices,  but  every 
detail,  every  series,  every  combination  renders  the 
whole  fabric  of  reputation  more  solid  and  more  se- 
cure. I  sometimes  think  that  we  Anglo-Saxons  are 
in  greater  need  of  the  inspiration  and  aid  that  we  get 
from  records  of  past  intellectual  achievement  than 
are  some  other  races.  For  our  intellectual  heritage 
does  not  come  at  all  from  our  physical  ancestry.  We 
are  the  intellectual  heirs  of  the  Greeks,  the  Romans 
and  the  Hebrews,  not  of  our  own  Teutonic  fathers. 
We  can,  therefore,  not  only  rely  on  heredity  to  main- 
tain our  intellectual  level ;  we  must  continually  drink 
from  the  same  fountains  through  which  our  fathers 
drew  inspiration.  We  sometimes  think  a  little  con- 
temptuously of  what,  we  call  the  veneer  of  modern 
civilization  that  the  Japanese  have  put  on,  forgetting 
that  our  own  civilization  is  in  great  part  also  ac- 
quired, although  the  acquisition  is  of  earlier  date. 
Moreover,  the  Japanese  have,  and  retain,  intellectual 
ideals  and  achievements  of  their  own.  having  learned 
from  the  West  hardly  more  than  its  mechanics  and 
engineering.  On  the  other  hand,  our  mechanical 
achievements  are  our  own,  our  Intellectual  and  es 
thetic  standards  are  borrowed.  Our  intellectual 
status  may  thus  be  compared  to  the  electrical  condi- 
tion of  the  trolley  wire,  which  in  order  that  it  may 
furnish  its  nsefnl  energy  to  the  motor  below  must  it- 


168  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

self  be  supplied  at  intervals  with  this  energy  from  an 
adjacent  feed  wire  communicating  directly  with  the 
source  of  electrical  power.  The  feed  wire  in  our  case 
is  the  library — a  collection  representing  the  intellec- 
tual energy  of  all  past  ages,  springing  directly  from 
the  powerful  brains  of  the  masters  of  mental  achieve- 
ment throughout  the  centuries.  Unless  we  supply  our 
minds  from  this,  we  shall  not  maintain  our  intellec- 
tual position.  Is  this  the  reason  why  the  popular  li- 
brary has  attained  with  us  a  development  that  it  has 
never  reached  in  Latin  countries,  whose  inhabitants 
possess  through  heredity  many  of  the  mental  stand- 
ards of  value  that  our  ancestors  borrowed  and  that  we 
must  borrow  ever  and  again  from  the  records  of  the 
past?  We  may  be  sure  that  this  is  at  least  a  possi- 
bility ;  and  we  may  be  equally  sure  that  the  adoption 
of  system,  both  external  and  internal,  will  facilitate 
both  this  and  all  other  functions  of  the  library.  The 
statement  that  "the  letter  killeth  and  the  spirit  giveth 
life"  was  never  intended  to  mean  that  we  are  to  neg- 
lect formal  and  systematic  methods  of  work.  The 
letter  kills  only  when  it  is  spiritless,  with  the  spirit 
to  give  it  life  it  does  well  its  part,  ensuring  that  the 
institution  to  which  it  applies  shall  produce  its  re- 
sults, surely,  quietly  and  effectively,  with  a  minimum 
of  noise  and  effort  and  with  a  maximum  of  output. 
Let  no  one,  then,  deride  or  decry  the  formation  or 
the  operation  of  a  library  machine ;  we  live  in  an  age 
of  machinery — of  machines  formed  by  effective  hu- 
man co-operation,  as  well  as  by  interlocking  gears  and 
interacting  parts.  Rudyard  Kipling  makes  his  Scotch 
engineer  see  in  the  relentless  motion  of  his  links  and 
pistons  something  of  that  "foreknowledge  infinite"  in 
which  his  Calvinistic  training  had  taught  him  to  be- 
lieve and  trust.  So  may  we  see  in  library  machinery 
an  aid  to  the  accomplishment  of  that  "far-off  divine 


SYSTEM   IN   Till:    LIBRARY  169 

event"  toward  which  our  whole  modern  library  crea- 
tion has  been  and  is  still  silently,  but  no  less  power- 
fully moving — the  bringing  into  intellectual  relation- 
ship of  each  living  human  brain  within  our  reach 
with  every  other  companionable  or  helpful  human 
brain,  though  physically  inaccessible  through  death 
or  absence.  This  is  the  comprehensive  ideal  of  the 
librarian;  no  machinery  thai  may  work  toward  its 
attainment  is  superfluous  or  inept. 


THE  EXPLOITATION  OF  THE  PUBLIC 
LIBRARY* 

Two  and  a  half  years  ago;  or,  to  be  more  exact, 
on  January  22,  1909,  in  an  address  at  the  dedication 
of  the  Chestnut  Hill  Branch  of  the  Free  library  of 
Philadelphia,  the  present  writer  used  the  following 
words : 

"I  confess  that  I  feel  uneasy  when  I  realize  how 
little  the  influence  of  the  public  library  is  understood 
by  those  who  might  try  to  wield  that  influence,  either 
for  good  or  for  evil  ...  So  far  there  has  been  no  con- 
certed, systematic  effort  on  the  part  of  classes  or 
bodies  of  men  to  capture  the  public  library,  to  dictate 
its  policy,  to  utilize  its  great  opportunities  for  influ- 
encing the  public  mind.  When  this  ever  comes,  as  it 
must,  we  must  look  out!  .  .  . 

"Organizations  .  .  .  civil,  religious,  scientific,  polit- 
ical, artistic  .  .  .  have  usually  let  us  severely  alone, 
where  their  influence,  if  they  should  come  into  touch 
with  the  library,  would  surely  be  for  good  .  .  .  would 
be  exerted  along  the  line  of  morality,  of  more  careful 
book  selection,  of  judicial  mindedness  instead  of  one- 
sidedness. 

"Let  us  trust  that  influences  along  this  line  .  .  . 
if  we  are  to  have  influences  at  all  .  .  .  may  gain  a  foot- 
hold before  the  opposite  forces  .  .  .  those  of  sordid 
commercialism,  of  absurdities,  of  falsities,  of  all  kinds 
of  self-seeking  .  .  .  find  out  that  we  are  worth  their 
exploitation." 

There  have  been  indications  of  late  that  the  pub- 
lic, both   as  individuals  and  in   organized  bodies,   is 

•  Address  before  the  American  Library  Association  at  the  Pasadena 
Conference,   May   19,    1911. 


172  LIBRARY     ESSAYS 

beginning  to  appreciate  the  influence,  actual  and  po- 
tential, of  the  public  library.  With  this  dawning  ap- 
preciation, as  predicted  in  the  lines  just  quoted,  has 
come  increased  effort  to  turn  this  influence  into  the 
channels  of  personal  or  of  business  advantage,  and  it 
may  be  well  to  call  the  attention  of  librarians  to  this 
and  to  warn  them  against  what  they  must  doubtless 
expect  to  meet,  in  increasing  measure,  as  the  years 
go  by.  Attempts  of  this  kind  can  hope  for  success 
only  when  they  are  concealed  and  come  in  innocent 
guise.  It  is  extremely  hard  to  classify  them,  and  this 
fact  in  itself  would  indicate  that  libraries  and  libra- 
rians have  to  deal  with  that  most  ingenious  and 
plausible  of  sophists,  the  modern  advertiser. 

But  in  the  first  place  I  would  not  have  it  under- 
stood that  the  use  of  the  library  for  advertising  pur- 
poses is  necessarily  illegitimate  or  reprehensible.  If 
it  is  open  and  above  board  and  the  library  receives 
proper  compensation,  the  question  resolves  itself  into 
one  of  good  taste.  The  taste  of  such  use  may  be  be- 
yond question,  or  it  may  be  very  questionable  indeed. 
Few  would  defend  the  use  of  the  library's  walls  or 
windows  for  the  display  of  commercial  advertising; 
although  the  money  received  therefor  might  be  sorely 
needed.  On  the  other  hand,  the  issuing  of  a  bulletin 
paid  for  wholly  or  in  part  by  advertisements  inserted 
therein  is  approved  by  all,  though  most  librarians 
doubtless  prefer  to  omit  these  if  the  expense  can  be 
met  by  other  means.  Under  this  head  come  also  the 
reception  and  placing  on  the  shelves  of  advertising 
circulars  or  catalogs  containing  valuable  material  of 
any  kind.  Here  the  library  gets  considerably  more 
than  its  quid  pro  quo,  and  no  librarian  has  any  doubt 
of  the  propriety  of  such  a  proceeding. 

Again,  where  the  advertising  takes  the  form  of  a 
benevolent  sort  of  "log-rolling,"  the  thing  advertised 


EXPLOITATION    OF    THE    LIBRARY     173 

being  educational  and  the  quid  pro  (/no  simply  the 
impulse  given  to  library  use  by  anything  of  this  na- 
ture, it  is  generally  regarded  as  proper.  Thus  most 
libraries  display  without  hesitation  advertisements 
of  free  courses  of  lectures  and  the  like.  When  the 
thing  advertised  is  not  free,  this  procedure  is  more 
open  to  doubt.  Personally  I  should  draw  the  line 
here,  and  should  allow  the  library  to  advertise 
nothing  that  requires  a  fee  or  payment  of  any  kind, 
no  matter  how  trifling  or  nominal  and  no  matter  how 
good  the  cause. 

These  things  are  mentioned  only  to  exclude  them 
from  consideration    here.     The   library  is   really    ex- 
ploited only  where  it  is  used  to  further  someone's  per- 
sonal or  business  ends  without  adequate  return,  gen- 
erally with  more  or  less  concealment  of  purpose,  so 
that  the  library  is  without  due  realization  of  what  it 
is  really  doing.     Attempts  at  such  exploitation  have 
by  no  means  been  lacking  in  the  past.     Take  if  you 
please  this  case,  dating  back  about  a  dozen  years:  An 
enterprising  firm,  operating  a  department  store,  of- 
fered to  give  to  a  branch  library  a  collection  of  sev- 
eral thousand    historical    works    on    condition    that 
these  should  be  kept  in  a  separate  alcove  plainly  la- 
beled "The  gift  of  Blank  Brothers."     Nothing  so  un- 
usual about  this.     Such  gifts,  though  the  objections 
to  the  conditions  are  familiar  to  you  all,  are  frequent- 
ly offered  and  accepted.     In  this  instance,  however 
the  name  of  the  branch  happened  to  be  also  the  name 
of  the  enterprising  firm.     The  inference  would  have 
been  overpowering  that  the  branch  had  been  named 
after  the  firm.     The  offer  was  accepted  on  condition 
that  the  books  should  be  shelved  each  in  its  proper 
place  with  a  gift  label,  to  be  of  special  form  if  desired, 
and  that  the  donation  should  be  acknowledged  on  the 
bulletin  board.     These  conditions    were    not    accept- 


174  LIBRARY     ESSAYS 

able — a  .sufficient  indication  of  the  real  object  of  the 
gift.  Other  cases  might  be  cited,  to  say  nothing  of 
the  usual  efforts  to  induce  the  library  to  display  com- 
mercial notices  or  to  give  official  commendation  to 
some  book. 

Several  cases  of  the  more  ingenious  attempts  at 
exploitation  having  come  to  my  notice  during  the 
past  few  months  I  set  myself  to  find  out  whether  any- 
thing of  the  kind  had  also  been  noted  by  others. 
Letters  to  some  of  the  principal  libraries  in  the  coun- 
try elicited  a  variety  of  replies.  Some  librarians  had 
noted  nothing;  others  nothing  more  than  usual.  One 
said  frankly  that  if  the  people  had  been  "working" 
him  he  had  been  too  stupid  to  know  it.  But  others 
responded  with  interesting  instances,  and  one  or  two, 
in  whose  judgment  I  have  special  confidence  agreed 
with  me  in  noticing  an  increase  in  the  number  of 
attempts  at  this  kind  of  exploitation  of  late. 

I  may  make  my  meaning  more  clear,  perhaps,  by 
proceeding  at  once  to  cite  specific  instances  which 
must  be  anonymous,  of  course,  in  accordance  with  a 
promise  to  my  informants. 

A  photographer  offered  to  a  public  library  a  fine 
collection  of  portraits  of  deceased  citizens  of  the 
town.  This  was  accepted.  The  photographer  then 
proceeded  to  send  out  circulars  in  a  way  that  ren- 
dered it  very  probable  that  he  was  simply  using  the 
library's  name  to  increase  his  business. 

A  commercial  firm,  which  had  issued  a  good  book 
on  a  subject  connected  with  its  business,  offered  to 
print  for  various  libraries,  at  its  own  expense,  a  good 
list  of  works  on  this  subject  on  condition  that  it 
should  be  allowed  to  advertise  its  own  book  on  the 
last  page.  Submission  of  a  proof  revealed  the  fact 
that  this  advertisement  was  to  be  printed  in  precisely 
the  same  form  and  with  the  same  kind  of  heading  as 


EXPLOITATION    OF    THE    LIBRARY     175 

information  about  the  library  given  on  the  preced- 
ing page.  The  reader's  inference  would  have  been 
that  the  matter  on  the  last  page  was  an  official  libra- 
ry note.  Of  the  libraries  approached,  some  accepted 
the  offer  without  finding  any  fault  with  the  feature 
just  noted ;  others  refused  to  have  anything  at  all  to 
do  with  the  plan;  still  others  accepted  on  condition 
that  the  last  page  should  be  so  altered  that  the  reader 
could  see  clearly  that  it  contained  advertising  matter. 
A  lecturer  gained  permission  to  distribute  through 
a  library  complimentary  tickets  to  a  free  lecture  on 
an  educational  subject.  When  these  arrived,  the  li- 
brarian discovered  that  the  announcement  of  the  free 
lecture  was  on  the  same  folder  with  advertisements 
of  a  pay  course.  The  free  tickets  were  <jiven  out,  but 
the  advertisement  was  suppressed.  Efforts  of  this 
kind  are  perhaps  particularly  noticeable  in  connec- 
tion with  the  use  of  library  assembly-rooms.  There 
is  no  reason,  of  course,  why  libraries  should  not  rent 
out  these  rooms  in  the  same  way  as  other  public 
rooms,  but  it  is  usual  to  limit  their  use  to  education- 
al purposes  and  generally  to  free  public  entertain- 
ments. Some  efforts  to  circumvent  rules  of  this  kind 
are  interesting. 

Application  was  made  to  a  library  for  the  use  of 
an  assembly-room  for  a  free  lecture  on  stenography. 
On  cross-examination  the  lecturer  admitted  that  he 
was  a  teacher  of  stenography  who  desired  to  form  a 
class,  and  that  at  the  close  of  his  lecture  lie  intended 
to  make  announcement  of  his  courses,  prices,  etc. 
He  was  told  that  this  must  be  done  outside  the  libra- 
ry- 
It   is   very   common,   where   the   exaction    of   an 

admission  fee  is  forbidden,  to  take  tip  a  collection 
before  or  after  the  lecture.  When  told  that  this  is 
inadmissible,  the    lecturer    sometimes    takes    up    his 


176  LIBRARY     ESSAYS 

collection  on  the  sidewalk  outside.  There  have  been 
cases  where  employees  of  a  library  have  embraced 
this  opportunity  to  gather  contributions.  A  colored 
janitor  of  a  branch  library  was  recently  admonished 
for  standing  outside  his  own  assembly-room  door 
and  soliciting  money  for  a  pet  charity.  Another 
janitor  made  a  pilgrimage  to  the  central  library  to 
collect  from  the  staff.  A  classic  instance  of  this  kind 
is  that  of  the  street  gamin  who  for  several  hours 
stood  at  a  branch  library  door  and  collected  an  ad- 
mission fee  of  one  cent  from  each  user.  The  branch 
was  newly  opened  and  its  neighbors  were  unused  to 
the  ways  of  free  libraries. 

An  example  of  the  difficulty  of  deciding,  in  mat- 
ters of  this  kind,  whether  an  undoubted  advertising 
scheme  may  or  may  not  legitimately  be  aided  by  the 
public  library  is  found  in  the  offer,  with  which  all 
of  tou  are  familiar,  of  valuable  money  prizes  for  es- 
says on  economic  subjects,  by  a  firm  of  clothiers. 
The  committee  in  charge  of  the  awards  is  composed 
of  eminent  economists  and  publicists;  the  competi- 
tors are  members  of  college  faculties  and  advanced 
graduate  students;  the  essays  brought  out  are  of  per- 
manent value  and  are  generally  published  in  book 
form.  Under  these  circumstances  many  libraries 
have  not  hesitated  to  post  the  announcements  of  the 
committee  on  their  bulletin  boards.  Others  regard 
the  whole  thing  as  purely  commercial  advertisement 
^ind  refuse  to  recognize  it.  One  library  at  least 
posted  the  announcement  of  the  competition  for  1910, 
but  refused  to  post  the  result.  It  would  be  hard  to 
tell  just  how  much  altruism  and  how  much  selfish- 
ness we  have  here  and  the  instance  shows  how  subtle 
are  the  gradations  from  one  motive  to  the  other. 

Advertising  by  securing  condemnatory  action  of 
some  sort,  such  as  exclusion   from   the   shelves,   has 


EXPLOITATION    OF    THE    LIBRARY     177 

also  not  been  uncommon.     This  requires  the  aid  of 
the  press  to  condemn,  abuse  or  ridicule  the  library 
for  its  action,  and  so  exploit  the  book.     The  press,  I 
grieve  to  say,  has  fallen  a  victim  to  this  scheme  more 
than  once  and  has  thereby  given  free  use  of  advertis- 
ing space  ordinarily  worth  thousands  of  dollars.     A 
flagrant  instance  of  this  kind  occurred  in  one  of  our 
greatest  cities  about  ten  years  ago.     The  work  of  a 
much-discussed  playwright  was  about  to  be  put  upon 
the  boards.    A  wily  press  agent,  in  conversation  with 
an    unsuspecting    librarian,    obtained    an    adverse 
opinion.     The  aiding  and  abetting  newspaper,  which 
was  one  of  ostensible  high  character,  proceeded  at 
once  to  heap  ridicule  and  contumely  on  the  library 
and  the  librarian  for  their  condemnation  and  exclu- 
sion of  the  play    (which  really  wasn't  excluded  at 
all).      The  matter,    having   reached   the   dignity   of 
news,  was  taken  up  by  other  papers  and  for  a  week 
or  more  the  metropolitan  press  resounded  with  accu- 
sation, explanation,  recrimination  and  comment.    The 
gleeful  playwright  cabled  objurgations  from  London, 
and  the  press  agent,  retiring  modestly  into  the  back- 
ground, saw  advertising  that  would  have  cost  him 
1100,000,  at  the  lowest  estimate,  poured  into  his  will- 
ing lap  by  the  yellow,  but  easy,  press  of  his  native 
burg.    It  is  possibly  unfair  to  cite  this  as  an  attempt 
to  "work"  the  library— it  was  the  public  press  that 
was  ingeniously  and  successfully  exploited  through 
the  library. 

The  fact  that  the  mere  presence  of  a  public  libra- 
ry is  an  advantage  to  the  neighborhood  in  which  it 
stands  has  led  to  numerous  attempts  to  locate  libra- 
ry buildings,  especially  branches,  in  some  particular 
place.  These  are  often  accompanied  by  offers  of 
building-lots,  which,  it  is  sad  to  say,  have  occasional- 
ly appealed  to  trustees    not    fully    informed   of   the 


178  LIBRARY     ESSAYS 

situation.  I  recall  several  offers  of  lots  in  barren 
and  unoccupied  spots — one  in  an  undeveloped  region 
whose  owner  hoped  to  make  it  a  residence  park  and 
another  in  the  middle  of  a  flourishing  cornfield,  whose 
owner  considered  it  an  ideal  spot  for  a  branch  libra- 
ry— at  least  after  lie  had  sold  off  a  sufficient  number 
of  building  lots  on  the  strength  of  his  generous  gift. 
These  particular  offers  were  declined  with  thanks, 
but  in  some  instances  members  of  boards  of  trustees 
themselves,  being  only  human,  have  not  been  entirely 
free  from  suspicion  of  personal  or  business  interest 
in  sites.  Here  it  is  difficult  to  draw  the  line  between 
the  legitimate  efforts  of  a  particular  locality  to  cap- 
ture a  branch  site  and  those  that  have  their  origin 
in  commercial  cupidity.  Both  of  course  have  nothing 
to  do  with  the  larger  considerations  that  should  gov- 
ern in  such  location,  but  both  are  not  exploitation  as 
we  are  now  using  the  word. 

A  curious  instance  of  the  advertising  value  of  the 
mere  presence  of  a  public  library  and  of  business 
shrewdness  in  taking  advantage  of  it,  comes  from  a 
library  that  calls  itself  a  ''shining  example  of  efforts 
to  'work'  public  libraries  for  commercial  purposes." 
This  library  rents  rooms  for  various  objects  connected 
with  its  work,  and  finds  that  it  is  in  great  demand 
as  a  tenant.  Great  effort  is  made  by  property  own- 
ers both  to  retain  and  to  move  quarters  occupied  for 
library  purposes.  The  board  has  recently  refused  to 
make  selection  of  localities  on  this  basis. 

There  is  another  respect  in  which  the  public  libra- 
ry offers  an  attractive  field  for  exploitation.  In  its 
registration  files  it  has  a  valuable  selected  list  of 
names  and  addresses  which  may  be  of  service  in  var- 
ious ways  either  as  a  mailing-list  or  as  a  directory. 
Probably  there  are  no  two  opinions  regarding  the 
impropriety  of  allowing  the  list  to  be  used  for  com- 


EXPLOITATION    OF    THE    LIBRARY     L79 

mercial  purposes  along  cither  line.  The  use  as  a 
directory  may  occasionally  be  legitimate  and  is 
allowable  after  investigation  and  report  to  some  one 
in  authority.  I  have  known  of  recourse  to  library 
registration  lists  by  the  police,  to  !iu<l  ;i  fugitive  from 
justice;  by  private  detectives,  ostensibly  on  the  same 
errand;  by  ;i  wife,  looking  for  her  runaway  husband; 
by  persons  searching  for  lost  relatives;  and  by  credi- 
tors on  the  trail  of  debtors  in  hiding.  Where  there 
is  any  doubt,  the  matter  can  usually  be  adjusted  by 
offering  to  forward  a  letter  to  the  person  sought,  or 
to  communicate  to  that  person  the  seeker's  desire  and 
let  him  respond  if  he  wishes  to  do  so.  One  thing  is 
certain:  except  in  obedience  to  an  order  of  court,  it 
is  not  only  unjust,  but  entirely  inexpedient  from  the 
library's  standpoint  to  betray  to  anyone  a  user's 
whereabouts  against  that  user's  wishes  or  even  where 
there  is  a  mere  possibility  of  his  objection.  If  it 
were  clearly  understood  that  such  consequences 
might  follow  the  holding  of  a  library  card,  we  should 
doubtless  lose  many  readers  that  we  especially  de- 
sire to  attract  and  hold. 

Of  course  the  public  library  is  not  the  only  insti- 
tution whose  reputation  has  exposed  it  to  the  assaults 
of  advertisers.  The  Christian  ministry  has  foryears 
been  exposed  to  this  sort  of  thing,  and  it  is  the  be- 
lief of  Reverend  William  A.  Lee.  who  .writes  on  tie- 
subject  in  "The  Standard,"  a  Baptist  paper  published 
in  Chicago,  that  in  this  case  also  increased  activity 
,s  to  be  noted  of  late.  Persons  desire  to  present  the 
minister  with  a  picture  on  condition  that  he  mentions 
the  artist  to  his  friends;  to  give  him  a  set  of  books 
or  a  building-lot  that  his  name  may  be  used  to  lure 
other  purchasers;  they  even  ask  him  for  mailing-lists 
of  his  parishioners'  names.  "I  am  constantly  being 
besieged,"  says  .Mr.   Lee,  "by  agents  of  divers  sorts, 


180  LIBRARY     ESSAYS 

and  of  divers  degrees  of  persistency,  for  indorse- 
ments of  patent  mops,  of  'wholesome  plays,'  of  cur- 
rent periodicals,  of  so-called  religious  books,  of  'helps' 
almost  innumerable  for  church-workers  and  of  scores 
of  other  things  which  time  has  charitably  carried  out 
of  memory." 

It  is  refreshing  to  find  that  the  kind  of  library 
exploitation  most  to  be  feared  seems  not  yet  to  have 
been  attempted  on  any  considerable  scale  or  in  any 
objectionable  direction.  I  refer  to  interference  with 
onr  stock  and  its  distribution— an  effort  to  divert 
either  purchases  or  circulation  into  a  particular 
channel.  My  attention  has  been  called  to  the  efforts 
of  religious  bodies  to  place  their  theological  or  con- 
troversial works  on  the  shelves  of  public  libraries. 
When  the  books  are  offered  as  donations,  as  is  usually 
the  case,  this  is  hardly  exploitation  in  the  sense  in 
which  we  are  considering  it,  unless  the  library  is  so 
small  that  other  more  desirable  books  are  excluded. 
A  large  library  welcomes  accessions  of  this  kind,  just 
as  it  does  trade  catalogs  or  railroad  literature.  At- 
tempts to  push  circulation  are  occasionally  made, 
but  usually  without  success. 

But  up  to  the  present  time  it  is  the  glory  of  the 
public  library  that  it  knows  neither  North  nor  South, 
Catholic  nor  Protestant,  Democrat,  Republican  nor 
Socialist.  It- shelves  and  circulates  books  on  both 
sides  of  every  possible  scientific,  economic,  religions 
and  sectional  controversy,  and  no  one  has  raised  a 
hand  to  make  it  do  otherwise.  We  should  be  proud 
of  this  and  very  jealous  of  it.  As  we  have  seen,  there 
is  some  reason  to  think  that  newly  awakened  inter- 
est in  the  public  library  as  a  public  utility  has  led  to 
increased  effort  to  gain  its  aid  for  purely  personal 
and  commercial  ends.  Naturally  these  interests  have 
moved  first.     It  is  comparatively  easy  to  steer  clear 


EXPLOITATION    OF    THE    LIBRARY     181 

of  theni  and  to  defeat  them.  But  attempts  to  inter- 
fere with  the  strict  neutrality  of  the  public  library 
and  to  turn  it  into  partisanship  in  any  direction,  if 
they  ever  come,  should  at  the  earliest  betrayal  of 
their  purpose  be  sternly  repressed  and  at  the  same 
time  be  given  wide  publicity,  that  we  may  all  be  on 
our  guard.  We  may  legitimately  and  properly  adopt 
a  once  famous  and  much  ridiculed  slogan  as  our  own, 
in  this  regard,  and  write  over  the  doors  of  our  public 
libraries  "All  that  we  ask  is.  let  us  alone!" 


SERVICE  SYSTEMS  IN  LIBRARIES 

1  should  be  understood  better,  perhaps,  if  I  said 
"Civil  service  in  the  library";  but  the  civil  service  is 
so  called  merely  in  distinction  to  the  military  ser- 
vice, and  there  can  be  no  military  service  in  the  li- 
brary, although  the  uniform  of  certain  janitors  and 
messengers  may  appear,  at  first  sight,  to  give  me  the 
lie.  Every  library,  of  course,  must  have  some  plan 
of  service,  more  or  less  systematic  This  may  or  may 
not  be  subject  to  the  regulations  of  the  state  or  city 
civil  service.  I  have  no  desire  to  dwell  here  on  the 
question  of  the  desirability  of  such  connection;  but 
I  cannot  refrain  from  saying,  at  the  risk  of  losing  all 
of  my  civil  service-reform  friends,  that  I  regard  the 
present  methods  of  bringing  about  appointment  for 
merit  only  as  makeshifts,  well  designed  to  defeat  the 
efforts  of  politicians  and  others  who  wish  to  see  ap- 
pointments made  for  other  reasons,  but  necessary 
only  so  long  as  those  efforts  are  likely  to  continue. 
1  shall  doubtless  be  told  thai  they  are  likely  to  con- 
tinue indefinitely,  and  therefore  that  T  have  given 
away  my  whole  case.  To  show  that  this  is  not  so,  we 
have  only  to  point  to  a  large  number  of  libraries  in 
connection  with  which  there  is  no  such  effort,  and  in 
which  safeguards  against,  it  are  absolutely  unneces- 
sary. I  do  not  know  why  politics  has  not  invaded 
these  institutions,  but  I  know  that  it  has  not.  Dur- 
ing the  past  sixteen  years  1  have  been  connected 
with  four  large  libraries,  and  I  am  in  a  position  to 
say  not  only  that  no  political  appointment  was  made 
in  them  during  my  connection,  but  that  no  such  ap- 


184  LIBRARY     ESSAYS 

pointment  was  ever  attempted  or  suggested.  There 
is  absolutely  no  reason  why  the  protection  of  "civil- 
service"  regulation  should  be  thrown  over  these 
libraries,  and  every  reason  why  they  should  be  free 
from  the  harassing  and  embarrassing'  petty  annoy- 
ances and  restrictions  that  are  inseparable  from  such 
regulation. 

Much  as  1  honor  the  advocates  of  civil-service  re- 
form, and  applaud  what  they  have  accomplished  in 
the  way  of  furthering  a  real  merit  system,  I  submit 
that  a  further  step  in  advance  may  be  taken  when 
we  have  heads  of  municipal  departments  as  unlikely 
to  make  political  appointments  as  the  average  libra- 
rian is,  and  as  free  from  pressure  to  make  such  ap- 
pointments as  are  the  librarians  of  a  large  number 
of  our  best  institutions.  I  regard  that  as  the  best 
system,  therefore,  in  which  an  appointing  officer  or 
body,  sincerely  desirous  of  making  appointments  for 
merit  only,  is  perfectly  free  to  make  such  appoint- 
ments in  any  way  that  seems  proper;  and  as  only  the 
second-best  system  that  in  which  the  appointing 
power,  unwilling  to  make  appointments  for  merit,  is 
forced  to  do  so,  as  far  as  may  be,  by  the  supervision 
and  control  of  a  body  created  for  the  purpose.  So 
long  as  we  have  unwilling  municipal  officers,  we 
must  endure  this  second-best  plan,  of  course;  but  li- 
brarians are  rarely  of  this  kind,  though  they  may  be 
unfortunately  in  the  power  of  those  who  are.  It  has 
been  my  good  fortune  to  formulate  a  scheme  of  ser- 
vice for  each  of  the  four  libraries  to  which  I  have 
referred,  and  these  schemes,  with  necessary  modifica- 
tions, are  still  in  satisfactory  use.  The  first,  for  the 
New  York  Free  Circulating  Library,  was  made  in 
1896;  the  last,  for  the  St.  Louis  Public  Library,  in 
1910.  Some  were  hampered  by  the  necessity  of 
adapting  them  to  municipal  regulation,  while  others 


SERVICE    SYSTEMS    IX    LIBRARIES     L85 

were  quite  free;  and  other  local  conditions  Imposed 
differences  upon  them,  but  they  depended,  in  the 
main,  on  the  same  principles  and  were  carried  out 

in  much  the  same  way. 

I  have  numerous  requests  for  information  on  this 

subject  and  for  advice  upon  methods  of  grading  li- 
brary staffs,  with  regulation  of  promotions,  Lncre  -  - 

of  salary,  etc.  Possibly  the  best  way  to  answer  these 
may  be  to  give  a  brief  account  of  the  way  in  which 
the  work  was  done  in  these  four  cases. 

It  has  been  assumed  by  some  that,  as  every  good 
librarian  desires  to  have  these  matters  systematically 
regulated,  regulation  by  a  city  civil  service  commis- 
sion will  be  as  good  as  any,  and  that  a  man  who 
wishes  to  have  a  system  of  his  own  and  keep  it  under 
his  own  control  is  unreasonable  ami  foolish.  A  non- 
professional body,  however,  cannot,  even  with  pro- 
fessional expert  advice,  satisfactorily  regulate  the 
employment  of  profession;)  Is  for  professional  work. 
This  point  has  been  so  often  insisted  upon  and  elab- 
orated that  those,  who  do  not  now  appreciate  its  val- 
idity will  never  do  so.  Every  good  librarian  will 
wish  to  create  machinery  to  put  the  right  man  in  the 
right  place  in  his  force,  and  to  drop  him  out  if  he 
goes  wrong;  but  it  must  be  his  own  machinery,  not 
that  of  someone  else,  and  must  he  designed  to  aid 
him,  not  to  hamper  him. 

My  attention  was  drawn  to  the  necessity  of  a 
more  systematic  plan  of  service  in  the  New  York 
Free  Circulating  Library  on  assuming  charge  in  1895. 
The  library  had  been  hampered  by  insufficiency  of 
funds  and  had  been  obliged  to  supplement  assistants 
of  ability  and  experience  with  others  who  had  been 
employed  simply  because  they  could  be  obtained  at 
low  salaries.      Promotion,  where  it  was  distinctly  in- 


LIBRARY     ESSAYS 

dicated,  was  for  merit,  ascertained  simply  by  the  li- 
brarian's opinion ;   and  salary   increases  were  made 
very  largely    for   length    of  service.    An   effort   was 
made  at  the  outset  to  regulate  admission  to  the  force 
and  advancement  within  it.    Tin*  features  of  examina- 
tion and  of  grades  distinguished  by  letters  were  bor- 
rowed from   the  Boston    Public   Library.     A  depart- 
ment bead,  who  had  been  giving  private  instruction, 
had  by  the  board's  permission  placed  some  of  her  pu- 
pils in   the  library  for  practice  work     This  seemed 
an   excellent  opportunity  to  train  future  assistants; 
so  the  private  class  was  turned  into  a  library  train- 
ing class  and  the  pupils  into  apprentices,  their  teach- 
er being  retained  as  such  and  properly  compensated. 
The  library  force  was  divided  into  three  grades,  A,  B 
and  C,  to  which  a  fourth,  D  was  afterwards  added. 
The  first  two  were  indicated  by  the  fact  that  the  li- 
brary consisted  of  six  coordinate  branches,  each  with 
its  librarian-in-charge  ajnd  her  first  assistant.     All 
the  former  Mere  graded  as  A  and   the   latter   as   B. 
''lass  A  thus  necessarily  became  limited  in   number, 
depending  on  the  number  of  branches,  and  B  would 
have  been  similarly  limited  if  it  had  not  been   made 
to  include  also  all  the  high-grade  assistants — all  cap- 
able of  assignment  at  any  time  to  the  work  of  a  dep- 
uty librarian   of  a   branch.     (Mass  C  was  then   a  re- 
mainder class,   including  all   other  members  of  the 
library   staff.      It   soon   appeared,  however,   that  the 
line  of  demarkation  between  those  members  of  <  "lass 
B  who  were  first  assistant  librarians  and  those  who 
were  not  was  much  more  distinct  than  that  between 
B  and  < '.     \\  was  accordingly  limited  to  first  assis- 
tants; the  remnant  was  called  C.  and  the  old  T  be- 
came I).     The  old  feeling  that    seniority    should    be 
considered  Mas  deferred  to  by    arranging   for    auto- 
matic increases  of  salary  within  the  grades  at  speci- 


SERVICE    SYSTEMS    IN    LIBRARIES 

Bed  intervals.     Janitors    and    messengers    remained 
quite  outside  this  arrangement. 

It  was  provided  that  no  one  should  be  promoted 
from  grade  to  grade  without  the  passage  of  an 
animation;  but  that  passage  simply  placed  the  suc- 
cessful candidate  on  a  list  of  eligibles,  and  promotion 
from  this  list  was  made  l>v  considering  personal  fit 
oess,  character  of  work  and  immediate  conditions. 
Qualifications  for  the  different  grades  differed,  but  in 
quantity  and  advancement,  rather  than  in  quality, 
all  coming  under  the  heads  of  literature,  langui 
genera]  information  and  library  economy. 

This  plan  was  formulated  in  consultation  with 
the  library  committee,  and  was  adopted  as  part  of 
the  rules  of  the  library  by  the  board.  The  committee 
differed  somewhat  on  the  seniority  increases  within 
grades,  which  were  finally  retained,  and  considered 
it  of  great  importance  to  emphasize  work  and  person- 
al fitness.  .Methods  of  including  marks  for  these  in 
the  final  standing  of  the  candidate  wore  considered, 
but  the  difficulty  of  doinii'  so  led  to  the  adoption  of 
the  plan  as  stated. 

It  was  decided  to  give  every  member  of  the  staff 
the  right  to  demand  an  examination  for  promotion 
on  the  expiration  of  three  years'  service  in  one  grade, 
and  to  admit  others  by  special  order.  Advancement 
proved  to  be  necessarily  so  rapid,  however,  that  no 
one  who  had  any  chance  of  passing  tiie  examination 
ever  remained  three  years  in  a  grade,  ami  this  clause 
proved  practically  inoperative. 

Of   course,   many   passed   and    were   placed   on   the 

eligible  list  for  promotion  who  had  no  chance  <>f  ad- 
vancement for  reasons  connected  with  work  or  per- 
sonality. This  caused  dissatisfaction  which  it  was 
sought  to  mitigate  by  recognizing  presence  on  the 
eligible  list  by  increase  of  salary   to  the  grade  limit. 


188  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

provided  this  had  not  been  already  attained.     Even 
so,  however,  it  continued  to  exist. 

The  alternative  was  considered  of  examining  only 
those  selected  for  promotion  and  of  making  promo- 
tion conditional  on  the  passage  of  such  examination, 
but  was  rejected,  although  a  perfectly  possible  and 
logical  plan.  I>ut  objectionable  in  many  ways  as  all 
examinations  are,  they  foster  a  feeling  that  everyone 
is  having  a  chance,  and  previous  selection,  no  matter 
how  good,  is  open  to  the  same  objection  as  the  selec- 
tion alone  would  be,  without  any  test  at  all. 

It  would  also  have  been  possible  to  make  the  ex- 
amination competitive,  placing  the  names  on  the  list 
in  the  order  of  passage  and  promoting  in  that  order, 
or  grading  the  names  in  order  of  seniority,  as  in  most 
city  systems.  But  both  these  plans  are  open  to  ob- 
vious objections,  and  I  still  think  it  best  to  form  an 
eligible  list  whose  names  shall  not  be  considered  in 
any  order  at  all,  the  appointing  officer  being  quite 
free  to  make  his  choice  among  them. 

The  application  of  this  system  of  grading  to  the 
staff,  as  it  existed,  involved  discrimination  at  only 
one  point — that  separating  Classes  B  and  C,  or  as 
renamed  later,  C  and  D.  The  line  was  drawn  partly 
on  the  basis  of  the  salary  list  as  it  stood,  and  partly 
by  duties,  and  there  was  little  dissatisfaction. 

I  have  said  that  this  system  was  formally  adopted 
by  the  board.  This  is  not  necessary,  nor  is  it  the 
best  plan.  A  system  of  this  kind  is  best  regarded 
simply  as  an  aid  to  the  librarian  in  making  recom- 
mendations for  appointment  or  promotion.  In  mak- 
ing such  recommendation,  the  librarian  must,  of 
course,  satisfy  himself  that  his  candidates  are  fit, 
and  it  is  proper  that  he  should  adopt  any  system  that 
commends  itself  to  him  for  ascertaining  that  they 
are  so.     The  board  is,  of  course,  the  final  authoritv. 


SEEVICE    SYSTEMS    IX    LIBRARIES    189 

It  could  override  any  system  that  it  might  adopt, 
just  as  easily  as  it  could  go  over  the  head  of  the  li- 
brarian's recommendation  ;  and  it  is  better  for  its  own 
dignity  that  a  departure  from  the  system  should  take 
the  latter  form,  rather  than  the  former. 

I  regard  it  as  quite  sufficient,  therefore,  when  a 
librarian  grades  his  stall',  that  he  should  simply  re- 
port to  his  board  that  he  is  about  to  make  certain 
dispositions  and  require  certain  tests  to  aid  him  in 
making  proper  recommendations  for  appointment 
and  promotion,  and  that  his  recommendations  in  fu- 
ture will  be  guided  by  these  arrangements.  The  au- 
thority of  the  board  and  its  ability  to  reject  his 
recommendations  have  not  been  touched,  and  its  dis- 
position to  trust  him  and  accept  his  advice  will  be 
surely  increased  as  it  sees  that  he  is  adopting  plans 
to  improve  that  advice  and  give  it  force. 

This  grading  of  the  New  York  Free  Circulating 
staff  has  been  dwelt  on  at  length,  although  very 
simple,  because  it  formed  the  basis  of  the  other  grad- 
iugs,  now  to  be  described. 

The  application  of  a  similar  system  to  the  staff 
of  the  Brooklyn  Public  Library  took  place  early  in 
1899,  at  a  time  when,  owing  to  a  crisis  in  the  affairs 
of  the  library,  it  had  temporarily  ceased  to  do  work. 
It  had  only  four  library  assistants,  and  yet  the  prob- 
abilities were  strongly  in  favor  of  an  immediate  and 
rapid  expansion,  such  as  actually  did  take  place  not 
long  after.  Expediency,  therefore,  pointed  to  the  or- 
ganization of  the  staff  on  the  supposition  that  it 
would  soon  be  of  considerable  size. 

The  grading  was  precisely  similar  to  that  just 
described,  except  that  Classes  C  and  I>  were  com- 
bined and  called  Class  C,  and  the  letter  1)  was  used 
to  designate  members  of  the  training  class.  The  prin- 
cipal  interest  in  the  scheme  as  then  adopted   lies  in 


190  LIBRARY     ESSAYS 

its  relations  with  the  city  civil  service.  The  New 
York  Free  Circulating  Library  was  a  private  institu- 
tion, charitable  in  its  origin,  but  broadening  rapidly 
out  into  real  public  work.  It  bad  no  relations  with 
the  city,  except  to  apply  annually  for  its  subsidy  and 
receipt  for  the  monthly  instalments  thereof  as  paid 
over.  There  could  be  no  question  therefore  of  city 
civil  service  jurisdiction.  The  ease  in  Brooklyn  was 
different.  The  members  of  the  Board  were  appointed 
by  the  Mayor,  and  the  library  was  recognized  as  a 
city  institution,  although  exactly  what  this  meant 
had  not  yet  been  definitely  determined.  The  scheme 
of  service  was  adopted  at  first  on  the  supposition  that 
the  board  was  to  be  as  free  in  the  matter  as  though 
it  had  been  an  entirely  independent  body  .  The  ques- 
tion might  never  have  arisen,  but  was  precipitated  by 
the  city  auditor's  holding  up  the  payroll  on  the  ground 
that  it  had  not  been  certified  by  the  municipal  Civil 
Service  Commission.  The  question  went  at  once  to 
the  Corporation  Counsel  for  an  opinion,  and  after  he 
had  decided  that  the  city  civil  service  regulations 
covered  the  library  force,  there  Avas  a  further  dispute 
with  the  state  Civil  Service  Commission,  exacerbated 
by  a  difference  in  political  complexion  between  the 
two  bodies.  This  held  up  the  payroll  for  some  time, 
and  did  not  tend  to  reconcile  any  member  of  the  staff 
to  its  new  status.  Matters  having  been  settled,  the 
commission  promptly  certified  the  payroll  as  it  stood, 
in  order  to  terminate  the  embarrassing  situation,  and 
then  ensued  a  series  of  conferences  with  the  librarian 
on  permanent  grading.  It  was  decided  that  the  li- 
brarian and  assistant  librarian  fell  within  the  exempt 
class,  and  that  other  members  of  the  staff  could  be 
divided  into  senior  and  junior  assistants,  the  latter 
including  only  members  of  the  training  class  until 
properly  appointed  to    permanent   positions.     What- 


SERVICE    SYSTEMS    IN    LI  BR  ABIES     L9I 

ever  grading  the  library  might  choose  to  make  within 
the  senior  assistant  class  (A,  B  and  C)  was  therefore 
its  own  affair,  the  commission  taking  cognizance  of 

it  only  so  far  as  it  involved  increase  of  salary.  The 
point  of  conflict  came  at  entrance  to  Class  C,  or  on 
appointment  to  permanent  position  in  the  library. 
The  commission  at  first  insisted  that  it  should  make 
its  own  eligible  list,  graded  in  accordance  with  its 
own  examinations,  although  it  agreed  to  admit  no 
others  except  members  of  the  training  class  to  such 
examinations.  At  least  one  examination  of  the  kind 
was  held,  the  questions  evidently  being  written  by 
some  outside  librarian  on  general  principles,  and  with 
little  reference  to  our  needs  and  conditions.  Ultimate- 
ly, however,  the  commission  agreed  to  let  us  hold  the 
examinations  and  to  accept  our  rating,  although, 
when  the  eligible  list  had  once  been  formed,  we  were 
bound  by  it  rigidly.  In  regard  to  persons  outside  our 
graded  force,  such  as  janitors  and  messengers,  we 
were  held  strictly  to  civil  service  rules,  selecting  our 
men  from  the  first  three  on  the  list  submitted  to  us 
by  the  commission.  An  unsatisfactory  person  could 
be  summarily  rejected  after  trial  for  a  specified 
period,  and  as  many  such  were  on  the  list,  there  was 
rapid  rotation  in  office  in  this  part  of  the  force.  In 
the  graded  staff,  also,  although  it  might  seem  that 
the  commission  had  almost  abdicated  its  powers  in 
our  favor,  we  felt  the  restriction  that  bound  us  to 
select  from  the  top  of  the  list.  Even  though  we  had 
originally  made  the  ratings,  it  often  happened  that 
for  the  particular  vacancy  in  question  the  sixth 
name  might  be  that  of  the  best-qualified  person,  and 
we  had  the  disagreeable  alternative  of  taking  one 
who  was  not  our  first  choice,  or  of  appointing  on 
trial  and  rejecting  until  the  proper  name  had  been 
reached — a  process  much  in    vogue    in    city    depart- 


192  LIBRARY     ESSAYS 

incuts,  but  tiresome  to  the  appointing  authority  and 
ignominious  to  those  who  were  thus  rejected  and  who 
might  be  better  qualified  than  the  person  desired  for 
another  kind  of  position. 

In  1901  the  New  York  Free  Circulating  Library 
became  the  Circulation  Department  of  the  New  York 
Public  Library,  under  circumstances  that  gave  it  a 
separate  governing  body,  responsible  to  the  trustees 
of  the  Public  Library,  and  a  separate  staff,  whose 
organization  was  not  necessarily  the  same  as  that  of 
the  reference  staff.  The  annexed  staff,  of  course, 
brought  its  own  organization  with  it,  and  this,  with 
some  modifications,  became  that  of  the  present  Cir- 
culation Department.  The  principal  changes  were 
the  limitation  of  Class  C  to  three  times  the  number 
of  branch  libraries  and  the  almost  total  abolition  of 
salary  increases  for  length  of  service  within  grades. 
The  former  prevented  unlimited  promotion  from  D 
to  C,  and  made  necessary  a  selection  from  the  wait- 
ing list  to  fill  actual  vacancies,  and  the  latter,  while 
not  doing  away  with  a  difference  of  salaries  in  the 
same  grade,  made  it  possible  to  give  the  increases  as 
a  reward  for  good  work.  The  designation  of  the 
grades  by  letters  was  objected  to  by  some  members 
of  the  board,  on  the  ground  that  it  meant  nothing, 
so  that  alternative  names  were  adopted  for  C,  D  and 
E,  the  two  upper  grades  having  already  the  names 
of  librarian-in-charge  and  first  assistant.  Members 
of  C  were  named  second  assistant  librarians;  D,  as- 
sistants, and  E,  attendants. 

When  the  Free  Circulating  Library  grading  was 
made,  there  were  neither  children's  rooms  nor  chil- 
dren's librarians  in  New  York,  and  very  few  any- 
where. The  former  arose  first  and  were  served  by 
persons  assigned  for  the  purpose,  usually  from  Grade 
C.     The  organization,  later,  of  a  separate  children's 


SEBVICE    SYSTEMS    IX    LIBBABIE6 

department,  with  jurisdiction  over  all  children's 
rooms,  made  it  necessary  to  place  children's  libra- 
rians in  a  separate  class;  but  that  they  might  Dot 
feel  "out  of  the  running"  for  branch  librarianships, 
they  were  allowed  to  take  examinations  and  advance 
from  one  regular  grade  to  another,  in  addition,  if 
they  so  desired.  Catalogers  were  still  graded  regu- 
larly, however,  although  these  might  have  been  easily 
treated  in  a  similar  way.  The  special  nature  of  their 
work,  however,  was  recognized  by  a  variation  in  the 
examination.  The  test  for  the  children's  grade  was 
not  an  examination,  but  a  series  of  periods  of  prac- 
tical work  in  selected  branch  libraries,  with  observa- 
tion and  report  and  a  final  thesis.  Candidates  were 
specially  selected  by  the  supervisor  of  children's 
work,  and  so  jealously  has  entrance  into  this  grade 
been  guarded  that  even  now  not  more  than  half  of 
the  forty  or  more  assistants  in  charge  of  New  York's 
children's  rooms  are  members  of  it. 

In  later  years  a  thesis  also  has  formed  part  of 
the  examination  for  Class  A.  This  is  written  on  an 
assigned  subject,  and  the  successful  ones  are  some- 
times, although  not  always,  printed. 

One  of  the  difficulties  connected  with  the  grading 
in  the  Circulation  Department  of  the  New  York  Pub- 
lic library  was  the  assignment  to  proper  grades  of 
the  staffs  of  the  different  institutions  that  consolida- 
ted with  that  library  from  time  to  time.  There  were 
altogether  about  half  a  dozen  of  these,  with  staffs 
varying  in  Dumber  perhaps  from  live  to  forty  or  fifty 
persons.  It  was  decided  to  leave  the  assignment  en- 
tirely to  the  authorities  of  these  libraries,  who  prac- 
tically graded  their  staffs  on  a  plan  corresponding 
with  ours  before  consolidation,  so  that  there  was  no 
change  of  grade  afterward.  The  responsibility  was 
thus  thrown  upon  bodies  of  men  with  whose  authority 


L94  LIBRARY     ESSAYS 

(In1  new  staffs  were  familiar  and  which  they  would  be 
inclined  to  accept.  The  assignments  were  made  with 
varying  degrees  of  care  and  validity,  but  were,  on  the 
whole,  just,  and  there  was  little  complaint  with  then;. 
Too  low  an  assignment  was  corrected  by  the  next  ex- 
aminations for  promotion,  and  a  person  graded  too 
high  never  at  all  events,  rose  any  higher.  The  smooth- 
ness with  which  these  consolidations  took  place,  even 
sometimes  against  the  will  and  with  the  dismal  fore- 
boding of  the  dispossessed  authorities,  and  the  rapid- 
ity with  which  tin1  entire  staff  became  homogeneous, 
both  in  feeling  and  in  quality  of  work,  are  sufficient 
justification  of  this  particular  policy,  which  was  typ- 
ical of  that  of  the  library  in  regard  to  other  features 
of  these  consolidations. 

In  the  year  1910  it  was  decided  to  grade  the  staff 
of  the  St.  Louis  Public  Library.  The  principal  dif- 
ferences between  the  problem  here  and  that  in  the 
cases  that  have  been  described  depended  on  the  fact 
that  this  was  an  old  library,  with  a  comparatively 
large  staff,  having  traditions  of  its  own  and  justly 
proud  of  its  achievements  and  of  its  library  reputa- 
tion. There  had  even  been  a  feeling,  at  some  time  in 
the  past,  on  the  part  of  some  members  of  the  board, 
that  a  graded  staff  was  not  a  good  thing,  as  it  would 
hamper  freedom.of  control.  The  staff,  however,  had 
reached  such  a  size  that  some  kind  of  classification 
appeared  inevitable,  and  the  proper  method  of  hand- 
ling it  seemed  to  be  that  indicated  above  as  prefer- 
able, namely,  as  purely  an  administrative  matter 
under  the  librarian's  control,  to  aid  him  in  making 
recommendations  for  appointment,  promotion  and 
increase  of  salary.  This  was  explained  to  the  board, 
and  there  being  no  objection,  a  notice  was  at  once 
inserted  in  Staff  Notes,  the  medium  of  communica- 
tion between  the  librariau  and  the  staff,  that  the  force 


SERVICE    SYSTEMS    IX    LIBRARIES 

would  be  shortly  divided  into  grades,  "the  object  be- 
ing to  represent  definitely  the  exact  position  occupied 
by  each  one,  and  to  fix  the  maximum  salary  belong- 
ing to  each  grade."  There  was  some  additional  pre- 
liminary explanation  and  a  request  for  suggestions 
and  opinions.  After  a  lapse  of  about  six  months,  dar- 
ing which  the  plan  became  familiar  to  all  by  discus- 
sion, both  informal  and  in  the  weekly  meetings  of  the 
heads  of  departments,  the  grading  was  announced  by 
the  publication  in  Staff  Notes  of  the  principles  on 
which  it  had  been  made,  with  explanations  in  consid- 
erable detail.  The  names  of  those  assigned  to  the 
different  grades  were  not  given,  but  each  member  of 
the  stall'  was  notified  separately  of  his  own  grading, 
unless  this  was  obvious  from  the  published  explana- 
tion, as  in  case  of  branch  Librarians.  It  was  an- 
nounced that  the  grading  was  not  an  act  of  the  Hoard, 
but  "simply  a  schedule  expressing  the  formal  man- 
ner in  which  .  .  .  recommendations  will  hereafter  he 
made  to  the  board." 

This  scheme  was  more  thoroughgoing  than  any  of 
those  previously  noted,  in  that  it  provided  a  place 
and  designation  for  everyone  in  the  library's  employ. 
The  force  was  divided  into  three  sections — regular 
grades,  special  grades  and  ungraded  occupations. 
The  former  were  classified  practically  as  in  New 
York;  the  special  grades  were  made  to  include  cata- 
logers  and  children's  librarians,  with  any  special 
positions  of  enough  importance  to  be  placed  there; 
the  "ungraded  occupations"  were  those  of  janitors  and 
their  assistants,  messengers,  elevator  men,  binders 
and  other  miscellaneous  employees.  In  the  regular 
grades  A  and  B  were  limited,  and  while  C  and  D 
were  not  formally  so,  it  was  announced  that  they 
would  not  be  indefinitely  increased.  It  was  provided 
that,  those  in   special   grades   might  qualify  also   for 


196  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

regular  grades  and  might  also  be  transferred  thereto 
if  desired. 

In  assignment  of  members  of  the  staff  to  grades, 
existing  conditions  were  recognized  as  far  as  pos- 
sible, with  no  immediate  attempt  to  remedy  faults 
that  might  exist  therein.  Statement  was  made  that 
all  persons  who  might  consider  themselves  wrongly 
graded  would  have  early  opportunity  to  show  their 
lit! less  for  the  grade  above,  either  in  the  regular  wTay 
or  in  some  other,  if  it  could  be  devised.  It  was  stated 
that  the  qualifications  that  would  gain  the  librarian's 
recommendation  for  promotion  from  grade  to  grade 
( which,  it  will  be  remembered,  consists  merely  in  an 
increase  of  salary,  so  far  as  the  board  takes  cogniz- 
ance thereof)  would  in  general  be  of  three  kinds — 
educational,  to  be  ascertained  by  certificate  or  di- 
ploma, or  failing  these,  by  examination ;  special,  to 
be  ascertained  in  some  cases  by  examination,  in 
others  by  mail,  in  others  by  certified  experience;  and 
personal,  to  be  ascertained  by  personal  knowledge. 

In  connection  with  the  scheme,  the  training  class 
was  much  extended  in  scope  and  its  course  broadened 
and  made  to  cover  an  educational  year. 

Here,  as  in  New  York,  the  scheme  is  entirely  dis- 
tinct from  the  municipal  civil  service,  but  for  a  dif- 
ferent reason.  In  New  York  the  library  is  a  private 
institution,  occupying  city  property  and  doing  public 
work  by  provision  of  a  contract  which  does  not  pro- 
vide for  extension  of  the  city  civil-service  rules  over 
the  library  force;  in  St.  Louis,  the  merit  system  has 
not  been  introduced  at  all  among  city  employees. 
Should  it  be  introduced  in  the  future,  and  should  it 
be  decided  that  the  members  of  the  library  staff  are 
strictly  employees  of  the  city,  we  might  have  here 
the  Brooklyn  experience  over  again,  as  detailed  above. 
For  purely  selfish  reasons,  therefore,  the  St.   Louis 


SERVICE    SYSTEMS    IN    LIBRARIES     107 

Public    Library    should    be   well   satisfied    with    the 
status  quo. 

Iu  concluding-,  it  may  I)*'  well  to  call  attention 
again  to  the  fact  that  such  schemes  as  these  are  de- 
signed to  aid  an  appointing  body  or  officer,  not  to  con- 
trol him.  They  would  he  of  little  value  to  a  munici- 
pality desiring  to  limit  a  political  mayor's  power  for 
evil,  or  to  a  mayor  wishing  to  keep  his  hoard  of  libra- 
ry trustees  within  bounds,  or  to  a  board  anxious  to 
curb  its  librarian's  propensity  to  appoint  personal 
favorites.  Such  a  plan  pre-supposes  that  appoint- 
ment and  promotion  for  the  good  of  the  service  are 
desired,  and  it  serves  to  bring  this  about  so  far  as  it 
may.  A  board,  or  a  librarian,  could  depart  from  it 
or  violate  its  provisions  in  a  dozen  ways.  What, 
then,  is  the  use  of  it?  In  a  small  staff,  it  has  no  uses. 
It  would  lie  as  silly  to  grade  such  a  staff  and  make 
rules  for  its  promotion  as  it  would  be  for  a  house- 
keeper with  a  cook  and  one  maid  to  call  the  former 
Class  A  and  the  latter  ("lass  B,  ami  draw  up  rules 
for  their  appointment  and  promotion.  But  as  soon 
as  the  size  of  the  staff  exceeds  that  at  which  the  officer 
in  charge  can  know  each  member  and  her  work  with 
intimate  personal  knowledge,  then  something  of  the 
kind  becomes  imperative.  The  members  of  such  a 
staff  are  better  satisfied  that  they  are  being  treated 
with  uniform  justice,  and  that  merit  is  properly 
recognized,  if  it  is  done  in  some  systematic  way  like 
this,  and  the  officer  on  whose  recommendation  ap- 
pointments and  promotions  are  made  runs  much  less 
risk  of  making  mistakes.  Every  librarian  should,  I 
believe,  examine  himself  to  make  sure  that  his  present 
scheme  of  service,  whatever  it  may  be,  is  sufficient 
for  these  purposes  and  adapted  to  secure  their  attain- 
ment smoothly  ami  satisfactorily. 


EFFICIENCY  RECORDS  IN   LIBRARIES 

In  the  foregoing  article  the  present  writer  gave 
the  result  of  his  experience  in  formulating  and  es- 
tablishing systems  of  service  in  four  Large  libraries, 
and,  incidentally,  stated  his  conclusion  that  such  sys- 
tems should  always  remain  in  the  control  of  the  li- 
brary authorities. 

While  the  plans  therein  described  work  satisfac- 
torily from  an  inside  standpoint,  they  are  defective 
in  one  particular — that  of  complete  record.  This  is 
most  important  in  case  of  investigation  by  competent 
authority.  While  direct  control  of  a  library  service 
system  by  an  outside  body,  such  as  a  municipal  or 
other  civil  service  hoard,  is  objectionable,  there  can 
certainly  be  no  objection  to  the  requirement,  by  muni- 
cipal charter  or  state  law,  that  the  library  service  be 
organized  and  operated  on  the  merit  system,  which 
requirement  presupposes  occasional  inquiry  to  ascer- 
tain whether,  and  in  what  degree  and  form,  this  is 
the  case.  Now,  in  the  event  of  such  investigation,  it 
will  usually  he  easy  to  produce  the  records  of  ex- 
aminations, with  marked  papers,  tabulated  marks, 
and  the  action  based  thereon.  When  it  comes  to  per- 
sonality and  efficiency,  such  records  are  not  easy  to 
get.  Even  where  libraries  assign  marks  in  these  sub- 
jects and  combine  them  with  the  results  of  the  writ- 
ten tests  to  obtain  a  final  mark  on  which  promotion 
is  based,  there  is  nothing  to  show  how  the  marks 
were  obtained,  and  the  investigating  authority  might 
not  unnaturally  conclude  that  here  was  an  opportun- 
ity to  nullify  the  merit  system.     Evidently  all  data 


200  LIBRARY     ESSAYS 

on  which  appointment  or  promotion  is  based  should 
be  matters  of  record,  otherwise  a  perfectly  well-or- 
dered  merit  system  cannot  be  demonstrated  to  be  such 
to  one  who  has  a  right  to  know;  and,  of  course,  in 
the  last  analysis,  every  citizen  has  this  right  in  the 
case  of  a  public  institution. 

What  appeared  to  be  needed  was  some  regular  re- 
port on  the  efficiency  of  every  employee,  which  should 
be  taken  into  account  in  assigning  marks  or  in  some 
other  way,  in  making  promotions,  made  in  such  per- 
manent form  that  it  could  be  filed  as  a  record.  Such 
reports  are,  of  course,  constantly  made  orally  and 
acted  upon,  without  any  record  being  preserved. 
They  are  occasionally  made  in  recordable  form,  per- 
haps most  often  in  the  case  of  apprentices  or  mem- 
bers of  training  (lasses.  In  some  cases  derelictions 
or  unfavorable  reports  alone  have  been  recorded,  but 
a  complete  report  on  personality  and  work  made  reg- 
ularly and  filed  permanently  is  a  thing  that  has  not 
come  under  my  observation,  although,  of  course,  it 
may  exist. 

Having  decided  to  adopt  some  such  form  of  re- 
port in  the  St.  Louis  Public  Library,  the  librarian 
laid  the  matter  before  the  weekly  conference  of  de- 
partment heads  and  branch  librarians.  Had  the 
question  been  the  advisability  of  the  adoption  of  such 
a  form,  the  sentiment  of  the  meeting  would  probably 
have  been  against  it,  but  the  announcement  was 
simply  that  the  librarian  had  decided  to  require  reg- 
ularly thereafter,  in  shape  suitable  for  filing,  infor- 
mation regarding  the  efficiency  of  assistants  that  had 
hitherto  been  received  irregularly  and  by  word  of 
mouth.  A  staff  committee  was  appointed  to  draft  a 
form  of  report,  and  the  reports  of  progress  of  this 
committee,  with  the  incidental  discussions  and  con- 
ferences, occupied  nearly  a  year,  during  which  time 


EFFICIENCY    RECORDS  201 

everyone  on  the  staff  became  thoroughly  familiar 
with  the  plan  and  either  agreed  with  the  librarian 
regarding  its  advisability  <>r  had  some  reasonable  and 
well-considered  ground  of  opposition. 

The  librarian  had  in  mind  a  short  form,  containing 
a  few  important  data.  The  committee  brought  in  a 
long  one— somewhat  longer  than  that  finally  adopted, 
which  is  given  below.  Their  reason,  as  stated,  was 
that  it  is  easier  to  answer  a  large  number  of  <|u,'s- 
tions  that  require  hardly  more  than  the  words  "yes" 
and  "no"  in  reply  than  a  few.  each  of  which  calls  for 
the  writing  of  an  essay,  however  brief.  This  reason 
appealed  to  all  and  finally  prevailed.  It  means  prac- 
tically  the  presentation  of  the  information  required, 
ready-made,  and  its  adoption  or  rejection  by  the  per- 
son making  the  report.  Discussion  in  the  meeting 
was  chiefly  on  the  more  personal  items  of  informa- 
tion, such  as  those  about  neatness  of  dress,  etc.;  also 
about  others  whose  propriety  or  clearness  wak-qiies- 
tioned,  such  as  that  regarding  loyalty  to  the  library. 
Pome  of  these  were  finally  stricken  out,  but  most 
were  retained.  It  was  also  noted  that  in  many  cases 
the  information  asked  for  could  not  ordinarily  be 
obtained.  A  department  head,  for  instance,  may  be 
intimate  enough  with  one  of  her  assistants  to  know 
whether  she  has  a  real  appreciation  for  literature, 
but  in  most  instances  this  would  not  be  the  case. 
Many  such  questions  were  retained  on  the  ground 
that  answers,  if  possible,  would  be  of  value,  and,  if 
not,  could  simply  be  omitted. 

After  the  forms  had  thus  been  put  into  shape 
they  were  duplicated  and  a  copy  was  given  to  each 
department  head,  with  instructions  Jo  show  it  to  all 
her  assistants,  discuss  it  with  them  and  report  at 
the  next  meeting.  The  reports  showed  that  tic  re- 
ception of  the  form   had  depended  chiefly  on   the  de- 


202  LIBRARY     ESSAYS 

partment  head,  either  through  manner  of  presenta- 
tion or  through  personal  influence.  In  some  depart- 
ments the  plan  seemed  to  be  viewed  with  equanimity, 
while  in  others  there  was  a  considerable  amount  of 
suspicion,  distrust  and  dislike  of  the  whole  scheme. 
It  was  next  announced  that  anyone  on  the  staff  desir- 
ing to  discuss  the  matter  with  librarian  would  be 
given  an  opportunity  to  do  so  at  a  specified  meeting. 
This  was  well  attended,  and  it  appeared  that  much 
of  the  feeling  was  due  to  misunderstanding.  It  was 
explained  that  no  new  method  of  making  promotions 
was  contemplated,  and  that  personality  and  efficiency 
would  be  taken  into  account  neither  more  nor  less 
than  before,  but  that  the  reports  from  which  the 
librarian  derived  his  information  on  these  points 
would  be  required  in  writing,  thus  safeguarding  both 
the  appointing  officer  and  the  appointees.  There 
seemed  to  be  a  strong  feeling  on  the  part  of  some 
that  personal  feeling  might  actuate  some  department 
head  to  make  a  false  report,  and  that  while,  of  course, 
such  report  might  be  made  even  more  effectively  if 
rendered  orally,  it  would  be  a  pity  to  have  it  per- 
manently on  record.  There  was  no  answer  to  this  ex- 
cept that  the  likelihood  of  such  a  misleading  report 
would  probably  become  known  to  the  librarian,  who 
could  reject  or  modify  it. 

In  due  course  of  time,  a  sufficient  number  of 
blanks  were  distributed,  filled  and  handed  in.  They 
were  then  discussed  again  at  a  meeting,  and  ques- 
tions that  had  come  up  in  the  practical  rendition  of 
the  reports  were  brought  up  and  settled.  A  filled  re- 
port regarding  the  work  of  every  classified  assistant 
in  this  library  is,  now  on  file  in  the  librarian's  office. 

The  conditions  under  which  these  reports  are 
made  and  held  are  as  follows : 

Every  question  must  be  answered  or  the  reason 
for  not  doing  so  must  be  stated. 


EFFICIENCY     RECOR]  203 

The  reports  are  to  be  made  out  regularly  od  the 
first  of  each  year,  or  oftener  at  the  librarian's  request. 
Each  is  accessible  only  to  the  librarian,  to  the  re- 
porting officer  and  to  the  assistant  reported  on,  except 
when  a  transfer  is  to  he  made,  when  the  head  of  the 
department  to  which  the  assistant  is  to  be  transferred 
may  also  consult  the  record. 

Since  the  reports  were  made  out  only  about  half 
a  dozen  assistants  have  requested  to  be  shown  their 
records.  Some  others  were  allowed  to  see  them  he- 
fore  they  were  handed  in.  Sueh  excitement  as  there 
was  regarding  the  matter  has  now  abated,  and  the 
matter  has  been  relegated  to  its  proper  plane  in  the 
scheme  of  library  things.  This  is  due,  probably,  very 
largely  to  the  plan  of  conducting  the  whole  mat- 
ter on  a  free  and  open  hasis,  in  consultation  with  the 
staff  at  every  point,  and  also  to  the  length  of  time 
that  was  allowed  to  elapse  between  steps.  Publicity 
and  deliberation  are  the  two  accessary  things  in  a 
procedure  of  this  kind,  and  both  are  commended  to 
librarians  wishing  to  adopt  this  kind  of  record. 

There  is  no  doubt  in  my  mind  thai  some  efficiency 
record  is  necessary  and  valuable,  and  that  a  full 
record,  including  the  usual  high  percentage  of  good 
things  with  the  possible  proportion  of  bad  ones,  is 
preferable  to  a  mere  blacklist,  on  which  only  the 
bad  is  recorded. 

The  blank,  as  finally  adopted,  is  reproduced  here- 
with. 


ST.  LOUIS  PUBLIC  LIBRARY 
Record  01    Efficiency 

Name 

(Inverted,  in  full) 
Branch  or  Department. 

Length  of  service  in  dept.  or  branch. 
Present    grade   of    assistant. 
Entered   the    library 


L>04  LIBRARY     ESSAYS 

A.  Personal  qualities. 

1.  Physically  strong  enough  for  the  work? 

How  much  time  lost  while  in  department  and  why? 

2.  Knowledge  of  books. 
Improving  in  this? 

3.  All  around  information? 

4.  Appreciation   for  real  literature. 

5.  Resourceful?     Systematic? 

6.  Self-possessed  in  a  rush  or  emergency? 

7.  Executive   ability  ?     Decision  ? 

8.  Accurate?     Quick?     Adaptable? 

9.  Industrious?     Careless? 

io.  Obliging  to   fellow-workers? 

11.  Punctual?     Times  tardy?     Excusable? 

12.  Forgetful ?     Inclined  to  gossip? 

13.  Neat  and  appropriate  in  dress? 

B.  Relations  with  the  public. 

1.  Uniformly  courteous?     Dignified? 

2.  Inclined   to   entertain   personal   visitors?. 

3.  Effective  in  work  with  adults? 

4.  Effective  in  work  with  children? 

C.  Grade  as  excellent,  good,  fair,  or  poor. 

1.  Library  hand. 

2.  Printing. 

3.  Typewriting. 

4.  Shorthand. 

D.  Did  the  assistant  improve  while  with  you? 

In  what  way? 

In  what  did  she  fall  short? 

E.  If  the  assistant  had  weak  points,  did  you  call  her  attention  to 

them  ? 

F.  What  did  you  especially  like  about  the  assistant? 

G.  Do  you  consider  the  assistant  fitted  or  unfitted  by  personality, 

education  and  practical  efficiency  to  work  in  any  one  of  the 
following  departments?  Grade  her  work  as  excellent,  good, 
fair  or  poor,  stating  also  length  of  service  at  each  kind  of 
work. 

I.  An  all-around  branch  assistant  in  this  library? 

2. A   children's   librarian? 

3.  A  reference  department  assistant? 

4.  A  catalog  department  assistant? 

5.  A  desk  assistant? 

6.  A  clerical  assistant? 

7.  An  assistant  in  other  lines?   (specify) 

If  you  do  not  consider  the  assistant  so  fitted,  give  particular 
reasons. 
H.  Is  the  assistant  loyal  to  the  library? 
I.  Has  the  assistant  enthusiasm  in  her  work? 
J.  Would  you  be  satisfied  to  have  the  assistant  in  your   (Branch) 

(Dept.),  not  considering  the  fact  that  you  might  prefer  some 

one  else? 
L.  Remarks. 

Signature 
Date  Title 


MAL-EMPLOYMENT  IX  THE   LIBRARY* 

Students  of  the  labor  problem  have  given  a  vast 
amount  of  attention  to  the  unemployed,  but  compar- 
atively little  to  the  mal-employed.  It  troubles  them 
— and  very  properly — that  there  should  be  large  num- 
bers of  persons  who  are  doing  no  work,  who  are  con- 
tributing nothing  toward  the  operation  of  the  world's 
machinery;  they  do  not  seem  to  be  so  greatly  bothered 
that  there  are  persons  hard  at  work  to  no  purpose  or 
with  evil  result — whose  efforts  either  do  not  help  the 
world  along  or  actually  impede  it  or  hold  it  back. 
Serious  as  is  the  case  of  those  who  are  not  employed 
at  all,  it  is  as  nothing  compared  with  those  who  are 
employed  badly. 

One  reason  for  this  neglect — which  is  at  the  same 
time  a  reason  why  it  should  no  longer  exist — is  that 
the  burden  of  unemployment  bears  most  conspicuously 
on  the  individual,  while  that  of  mal-employment  is 
predominantly  civic.  It  is  true  that  unemployment 
works  civic  injury,  and  that  mal-employment,  espe- 
cially if  it  be  criminal,  is  recognized  at  once  as  a 
possible  harm  to  the  individual.  But  what  I  mean 
is  that  the  unemployed  person,  unless  he  is  one  of 
the  idle  rich,  is  greatly  concerned  about  his  lack  of 
employment,  which  touches  his  pocket  directly.  He 
does  all  that  he  can  to  get  back  into  the  ranks  of 
4he  employed,  but  once  there  it  does  not  occur  to 
him  to  ask  whether  what  he  is  doing  benefits  so- 
ciety, or  is  of  no  value  to  it.  or  actually  harms  it. 
Even  if  he  does  so  inquire,  he  is  not  likely  to  give 
up  a  job  that  pays  him  well  simply  because  what   lie 

•  Read  before   the  Iowa  Library  Association. 


206  LIBRARY     ESSAYS 

is  doing  is  injurious  to  the  world's  progress.  ,The 
injury  done  is  social  and  civic  and  we  must  look  to 
increased  social  and  civic  consciousness  for  its  abate- 
ment. 

I  owe  this  word  mal-employment,  in  its  contrast- 
ed use  with  unemployment,  to  William  Kent,  a  mem- 
ber of  Congress  from  the  city  of  Chicago.  In  a  re- 
cent  interview,  Mr.  Kent  gives  it  as  his  opinion  that 
the  sin  of  the  day  is  waste — the  expenditure  of  effort 
for  naught  or  for  positive  ill.  Of  course,  when  we  get 
down  to  details  there  is  difficulty  or  even  impossibil- 
ity in  deciding  whether  or  not  a  given  man  is  mal- 
employed — we  may  leave  out  of  consideration  here  all 
persons  engaged  in  criminal  occupations.  For  in- 
stance, Mr.  Kent  considers  that  the  small  army  of 
men  engaged  in  the  manufacture  of  champagne  are 
all  mal-employed.  Whether  we  agree  with  him  or  not 
depends  somewhat  on  our  predispositions  and  our 
points  of  view.  Many  parents,  in  earlier  days, 
thought  that  when  children  were  at  play  they  were 
mal-employed;  most  persons  now  regard  this  form  of 
employment  as  necessary  and  beneficial,  although  Dr. 
Boris  Sidis  thinks  that  the  same  interest  now  em- 
ployed in  aimless  play  may  be  used  to  carry  the  child 
onward  in  the  path  of  individual  progress  and  devel- 
opment. How  about  the  vast  number  of  persons  oc- 
cupied in  amusing  or  trying  to  amuse  the  public — 
employes  of  theatres,  recreation  parks,  and  so  on? 
Many  are  well  employed;  some  are  doubtless  mal- 
employed.  Among  persons  that  we  should  all  agree 
are  mal-employed  are  all  those  writing  books  or  plays 
that  are  morally  harmful,  as  well  as  those  concerned 
in  publishing  such  books  or  producing  such  plays, 
and,  for  the  moment,  all  who  are  reading  or  witness- 
ing them;  persons  engaged  in  manufacturing  or  dis- 
tributing useless  or  harmful  products;    all    who    do 


MAL-EMPLOYMENT    IN    LIBRARY       L'07 

work  of  any  kind  so  badly  that  inconvenience  or  harm 
results;  unnecessary  middlemen  whose  intervention 
in  the  process  of  distribution  only  impedes  it  and  adds 
to  its  expense.  Anyone  may  add  to  the  list  by  taking 
thought  a  little.  If  all  these  mal-employed  persons 
should  suddenly  lose  their  positions  the  result  would 
be  beneficial  to  society,  even  if  society  had  to  support 
them  in  idleness;  if  they  should  all  turn  their  atten- 
tion from  mal-employment  to  beneficial  uses,  how  in- 
calculably great  a  blessing  they  would  bestow  upon 
mankind!  It  is  every  man's  business,  it  seems  to  me, 
to  inquire  whether  he  is  well  employed  or  mal-em- 
ployed, and  if  the  occupation  in  which  he  is  engaged 
is  generally  beneficial  to  society,  then  whether  all 
those  under  his  orders  are  well  employed  in  carrying 
out  its  purpose. 

Let  us,  as  librarians,  take  up  this  civic  task  for  a 
few  moments.  And  first,  let  us  not  hastily  conclude 
that  we  are  necessarily  well  employed  simply  because 
we  are  librarians.  A  library  may  do  harm;  I  have 
personally  known  of  harm  done  by  libraries.  A  group 
can  be  no  better  than  its  constituents;  a  collection  of 
harmful  books  is  assuredly  itself  harmful.  More,  a 
chain  is  no  stronger  than  its  weakest  link;  a  fleet  is 
no  faster  than  its  slowest  ship;  and  we  may  almost 
say  that  a  library  is  no  better  than  its  worst  book. 
And  we  must  not  forget  that  a  book  may  be  bad  in 
three  ways:  it  may  give  incorrect  information,  teach 
what  is  morally  wrong,  or  use  language  that  is  unfit- 
ting, h  may  be  necessary  that  a  library  should  con- 
tain any  or  all  of  these,  but  if  they  give  it  its  atmos- 
phere and  control  its  influence  as  an  educational  insti- 
tution, even  nn wittingly,  it  is  anti-social  and  those 
who  administer  it  are  mal-employed.  I  have  in  mind 
;i  pseudo-scientific  book  for  children  that  abounds  in 
misstatements  combined  with  beautiful  illustrations; 


208  LIBRARY     ESSAYS 

::  book  of  travel  full  of  ludicrous  misinformation;  a 
work  intended  to  teach  Italians  English,  whose  Eng- 
lish is  screamingly  funny.  The  library  assistant  who 
hands  one  of  these  to  a  reader  is  mal-employed.  I 
can  make  a  list  (and  so  can  you)  of  books  that  teach, 
directly  or  by  implication,  that  what  is  universally 
acknowledged  to  be  wrong  is  right — at  least  under 
certain  circumstances;  that  theft  is  smart  and  that 
swindling  is  unobjectionable.  The  library  assistant 
who  circulates  these  is  mal-employed.  All  of  us  can 
easily  also  place  our  hands  on  books  whose  only  fault 
is  that  their  language  is  objectionable— incorrect, 
silly  or  vulgar.  They  may  be  otherwise  unobjection- 
able, yet  I  venture  to  say  that  the  distribution  of 
these  books  is  also  mal-employment.  How  about  the 
librarian  who  administers  such  a  library,  and  the 
staff  who  assist  him?  They  are  all  mal-employed. 
No  matter  how  well  and  how  conscientiously  the 
cataloguer  may  perform  her  task,  no  matter  how 
clean  the  janitor  may  keep  the  front  steps,  they  are 
only  aiding  to  keep  up  an  institution  that  dissemin- 
ates falsehood,  teaches  unrighteousness,  encourages 
vulgarity;  and  they  are  all  mal-employed.  This  is 
what  I  mean  when  I  say  that  a  library  may  be  no 
better  than  its  worst  book.  If  its  output  is  bad,  all 
exertion  to  accomplish  that  output  is  also  bad.  And 
as  for  the  output  itself,  it  may  be  that  the  good  done 
by  a  thousand  good  books  may  not  outweigh  the  ill 
done  by  a  fewr  bad  ones. 

A  person  is  always  mal-employed  when  he  is  leav- 
ing a  more  important  thing  undone,  to  do  a  less  im- 
portant one.  The  degree  of  mal-employment  in  this 
case  is  measured,  of  course,  by  the  difference  in  value 
between  the  two  things.  Mr.  E.  L.  Pearson,  in  one  of 
his  library  articles  in  the  Boston  Transcript,  calls 
attention  to  what  he  names  "side-shows'1  in  libraries, 
and  asserts  that  the  chief  business  of  a  library,  the 


MAL-EMPLOYMENT    IN    LIBRARY       209 

proper  care  and  distribution  of  books,  is  often  neg- 
lected that  other  things  may  be  attended  to,  and  that 
money  Deeded  for  books  is  often  diverted  to  these 
other  uses.  This  is  undoubtedly  true  in  many  cases, 
and  in  so  far  as  it  is  true  some  librarians  and  library 
assistants  are  tnal-employed.  The  scope  of  library 
work  has  broadened  out  enormously  of  late  and  li- 
braries are  doing  all  soils  of  things  that  are  sub- 
sidiary lo  their  main  work — things  that  will  make 
that  work  easier  and  more  effective.  This  is  as  it, 
should  be,  provided  that  these  numerous  tails  do  not 
wag  the  dog.  To  take  an  extreme  instance  we  will 
assume  that  a  small  library  is  in  great  need  of  books 
and  that  a  small  gift  of  money,  instead  of  being  ex- 
pended for  these  is  put  into  material  for  picture  bul- 
letins. We  should  have  no  difficulty  in  concluding 
that  the  person  who  makes  the  bulletins  is  mal-em- 
ployed;  and  in  so  doing  we  should  not  be  condemning 
picture  bulletins  at  all  or  saying  that  money  spent 
for  them  is  wasted.  Take  again  a  case  specially  noted 
by  Mr.  Pearson,  which  is  bothering  the  heads  of  some 
of  our  library  trustees  at  this  moment — the  acceptance 
and  preservation  of  full  sets  of  the  printed  catalogue 
cards  of  the  Library  of  (1ongress.  There  can  be  no 
doubt  of  tin4  value  of  such  depository  sets  to  certain 
libraries,  and  as  they  are  given  free  of  charge  the  only 
expense  connected  with  them  is  the  cost  of  an  assis- 
tant's time  in  filing  them,  amounting  perhaps  to  an 
hour  or  two  a  day,  and  that  of  cabinets  in  which  to 
keep  them.  Whether  this  cost  is  far  outweighed  by 
the  usefulness  of  the  collection  to  the  library  and  its 
patrons,  or  whether  that  usefulness  is  practically  nil, 
making  the  outlay  wasteful,  no  matter  how  small  it 
may  be,  must  be  answered  by  each  library  for  itself. 
In  some  cases,  labor  expended  on  the  tiling  of  L.  C. 
cards  is  undoubtedly  mal-employment 

Certain  kinds  of  work  which  were  either  not  m  i! 


LIBRARY     ESSAYS 

employment  when   they   were  adopted,  or  were  not 
recognized  as  such,  have  become  so  by  reason  of  a 

age,  either  in  the  conditions  of  the  work  itself  or 
in  the  way  in  which  it  is  regarded  by  those  who  are 
doiug  ir  and  by  the  public  that  benefits  by  it. 

Take,  for  instance,  Labor  performed  under  an  age- 
liinit  rule  for  children,  such  as  nearly  all  libraries 
once  possessed,  and  such  as  is  still  enforced  in  some 
places.  If  it  is  true  that  the  library  ought  not  to  be 
used  by  children  below  a  specified  age,  work  done  in 
ascertaining  their  ages  and  in  excluding  those  barred 
out  by  the  rule  is  necessary  and  valuable.  If  this  is 
not  true;  if  the  exclusion  of  such  children  may  be 
actually  harmful  to  the  community,  it  follows  that 
all  such  work  is  the  most  flagrant  kind  of  mal-employ- 
nieiit. 

lint  there  may  also  be  mal-employment  in  the 
course  of  work  of  undoubted  advantage  to  the  library 
ami  its  public.  If  in  the  course  of  such  work  some- 
thing is  done  that  sets  it  back  instead  of  helping  it 
«>n.  or  that  injures  the  library  in  some  other  way  more 
than  it  helps  by  what  it  directly  effects,  labor  expended 
on  that  thing  is  mal-employment.  This  is  a  more 
fundamental  and  elementary  thing  than  lack  of  effi- 
ciency. If  an  assistant  is  cataloguing  books  well,  but 
much  more  slowly  than  she  ought,  she  is  not  efficient- 

nployed,  but  aeither  is  she  mal-employed,  for  she 
is  doing  nothing  that  directly  injures  the  work.  If 
she  were  To  stop,  the  library  would  be  injured,  not 
benefited,  lint  if  she  is  making  egregious  blunders 
in  her  work,  causing  undue  labor  in  revision  or  mak- 

the  catalogue  confused  or  misleading  in  case  her 
cards  should  get  into  it,  it  might  be  better  for  the  li- 

y  if  she  were  to  stop  work,  and  she  is  surely  mal- 
employed. 

The  public  is  apt  to  gi  '  om  insufficient 


MAL-EMPLOYMENT    JN    LIBRARY       21] 

data.  The  user  who  is  treated  rude];,  or  sullenly  at 
the  desk  just  once  does  not  say,  "I  will  make  a  record 
of  this  and  of  my  subsequent  experiences  and 
whether  it  is  a  usual  thing  or  an  abnormal  one."  Not 
at  all.  He  or  she  at  once  reports  in  conversation  that 
the  public  library  assistants  arc  continuously  rude 
and  disagreeable,  and  the  machinery  is  forthwith  - 
in  motion  that  makes  or  mars  reputation.  We  may 
chafe  at  this;  we  may  try  to  disregard  it.  but  in  tin- 
end  we  shall  have  to  accept  it  as  a  fact  of  human  na- 
ture. The  public  institution  that  wants  to  acquire 
that  valuable  asset,  reputation,  whether  it  is  a  repu- 
tation for  kindliness,  for  helpfulness,  for  common 
sens.-,  for  scholarly  acquirements,  will  have  to  make 
up  its  mind  to  be  kind,  helpful,  sensible,  and  scholar- 
ly, not  fifty  per  cent  or  seventy-live  per  cent  of  the 
time,  but  one  hundred  per  cent  of  the  tine-. 

Hut  entirely  apart  from  such  serious  intervals  of 
mal-employment  as  this,  is  it  not  probable  that  ail  of 
us  are  mal-employed  for  some  little  part  of  our  time".' 
Is  it  not  probable,  in  other  words,  that  our  work 
would  he  improved  if  we  should  omit  certain  parts 
of  it  and  do  nothing  at  all  instead?  It  is  certain,  for 
one  thing,  that  no  one  could  work  continuously,  day 
and  night,  without  serious  or  fatal  mal-employment 
That  is  the  reason  why  our  working  hours  are  limit-  d 
to  seven  or  eight  in  the  twenty-four.  Doubtless  some 
workers  are  over  worked  and  thus  mal-employed  in 
their  hours  of  overwork — the  sleepy  railroad  engineer, 
for  instance,  who  misses  a  signal  and  sends  a  hundred 
passengers  to  eternity.  We  are  doubtless  free  in  the 
library  from  just  this  kind  of  mal-employment,  ex- 
cept so  far  as  it  is  forced  upon  us  by  assistants  who 
work  or  play  too  strenuously  outside  of  working  hours. 
To  go  hack   to  the  assistant   who  is  -   or  cat' 

;ii  hour  every  day:  it  is  quite  possible  that  - 


212  L1IJRARY     ESSAYS 

in  no  condition  for  working  during  that  hour;  and 
this  is  not  because  the  library  hours  of  work  are  too 
long,  but  because  she  does  not  take  needed  rest  out- 
side of  those  hours.  Sometimes  this  cannot  be  helped; 
often  it  is  distinctly  the  workers  fault,  and  it  is  sure- 
ly putting  the  library  in  a  false  position  to  make  it 
overwork  its  staff  to  their  detriment  and  its  own,  just 
because  the  assistant  puts  in  her  best  and  freshest 
hours  in  work,  or  more  often  in  amusement,  outside 
the  library. 

Let  me  pause  here  to  say  that  the  reason  we  take 
vacations  is  to  avoid  the  chance  of  this  kind  of  un- 
employment. The  theory  of  the  vacation  is  widely 
misunderstood.  Some  take  it  to  be  a  period  of  amuse- 
ment granted  for  services  rendered.  "I  think  I  have 
earned  a  vacation,"  they  say.  Others  look  upon  it  as 
play-time  wrung  from  an  unwilling  employer — the 
more  they  can  get  the  better  off  they  are.  Few  real- 
ize that  it  is,  or  ought  to  be,  simply  an  incident  in 
the  year's  work,  an  assignment  to  special  duty,  with- 
out which  mal-employment  would  be  more  apt  to  re- 
sult. 

The  mal-employed  intervals  of  an  otherwise  valu- 
able worker  are  often  due  to  ignorance  of  conditions 
or  sheer  inability  to  meet  them.  In  an  interesting 
study  of  bricklaying  one  of  the  modern  school  of  effi- 
ciency engineers  found  that  most  bricklayers  kept 
their  bricks  too  far  from  the  point  on  the  wall  where 
they  were  to  be  laid,  and  that  a  long  and  wasteful 
carrying  movement  resulted.  If  the  time  occupied  by 
this  lost  motion  could  have  been  eliminated  and 
simply  given  to  resting,  even  without  doing  any  work, 
good  would  have  resulted;  these  x>eriods  were  hence 
intervals  of  mal-employment.  The  engineer  eliminat- 
ed them  easily  and  simply  by  bringing  the  pile  of 
bricks  within  a  few  inches  of  the  wall.     It  is  easy  to 


MAL-EMPLOYMENT    IN     LIBRARY       213 

say,  "Why,  of  course,  any  one  would  think  o*  that'" 
only  no  one  ever  did  think  of  it    A  Large  proportion 

of  the  most   valuable  inventions  and  discoveries  have 
been  of  this  character.    Some  one  has  remarked  that 
hi  the  earliest  stage  of  an   invention   people  say    -It 
won't  work:-    later   they  say,   "It   may    work,    but    it 
Won't  he  of  any  use."     Finally:   when    it   is  usefully 
running,  they  say.  "What  of  it?     Everybody  has  al- 
ways known  about   it!"     We  don't  do  these  obvious 
things  because  they  are  elements  in  a   scries  of  acts 
that  have  grown  to  he  habitual.    We  take  care  of  them 
subconsciously.    Also,  they  take  up  so  little  line-  in- 
dividually  that  at  first  thought   it   seems  foolish   to 
try  to  improve  or  eliminate  them.     Suppose  one  does 
a   useless,  or  even  an   injurious  thin-  that  lasts  hut 
three  seconds?    If  he  does  it  just  once  and  thru  stops 
it  would  doubtless  he  folly  to  change  it.    If,  however, 
like  the  bricklayer's  useless  and  tiresome  motions,  it 
is  repeated  hundreds  and  thousands  of  times,  the  mat- 
ter stands  on  quite  a  different  footing.     It  is  prob- 
able that  all  of  ns  are  habitually  doing  certain  things 
in  ways  that  involve,  without  our  realizing  it,  ele- 
ments of   this   kind,    either    mechanical    or   mental. 
Many  things  that  we  are  doing  by  laborious  repeti- 
tion, wearying  ourselves  and  using  up  valuable  mate- 
rial, might  be  made  to  "do  themselves"  if  we  only 
knew  how  to  utilize  tendencies  and  forces  that  are  all 
about  us,  unsuspected.     One  of     the    forces,    for    in- 
stance, is  the  desire  of  every  person  to  do  that  which 
will  give  him  pleasure.     If  the  things  we  want  done 
can   be  done  in  accordance  with   that  desire,  we  can 
get  others  to  do  them  for  ns.    The  classical  example 
of  the  boys  who  whitewashed  Tom  Sawyer's  fence  for 
him  will   occur  to  all.      There  is  deep  philosophy   in 
this.     I  have  known  librarians  to  exhaust  themselves 
by  trying  to  get  newspapers  to  publish  what  newspa- 
pers never  would  publish,  while  the  reporters  besiege 


2 1  i  LIBRARY     ESSAYS 

others  for  items  whicb  they  know  will  be  just  what 
they  want.  The  rales  of  some  libraries — both  those 
for  their  public  and  those  for  their  own  assistants 
—all  seem  to  run  up  hill— to  "rub  everyone  the  wrong 
way,"  while  those  of  others  seem  to  get  themselves 
obeyed  without  any  trouble  . 

Sometimes  the  substitution  of  a  mechanical  ap- 
pliance for  brain-work  is  what  we  want.  What,  for 
instance,  is  the  use  of  tiring  one's  brain  and  impair- 
ing  its  usefulness  for  other  needed  work  by  forcing 
it  to  perform  such  a  mechanical  operation  as  adding 
a  column  of  figures?  Every  library  that  can  afford 
to  own  an  adding  machine  ought  to  have  one.  The 
ones  that  can  not  afford  it  usually  do  not  need  it, 

While  we  are  discussing  the  lnal-employment  that 
docs  its  harm  by  tiring  out  the  worker,  physically  or 
mentally,  and  making  him  unfit  for  other  work,  we 
must  not  neglect  to  say  a  word  about  unnecessary 
talk.  Nothing  is  so  tiring  to  the  brain  as  talk.  I 
sometimes  think  that  if  we  were  all  forced  to  do  our 
work  in  silence  we  would  get  along  more  rapidly  even 
if  we  had  to  communicate  with  each  other  in  writing. 

If  a  man  were  in  charge  of  a  piece  of  complicated 
machinery,  and  if  he  feared  that  something  had  got 
into  it  to  clog  it,  while  his  knowledge  of  its  elemen- 
tary parts  was  still  so  slight  that  he  could  not  tell 
which  particular  bit  in  all  the  moving  mass  was  help- 
ing it  on  and  which  was  hindering  it,  what  would 
he  do?  He  could  remove  the  pieces,  one  by  one,  and 
watch  the  effect.  If  the  machine  refused  to  run  with- 
out a  certain  piece,  he  would  conclude  that  it  was  an 
absolutely  necessary  part;  if  it  still  ran,  though  with 
difficulty,  he  would  conclude  that  the  part,  though 
not  necessary,  still  promoted  efficient  operation;  if 
removal  resulted  in  no  change  at  all,  the  piece  was 
evidently  either  an  unnecessary  part,  or  an  alien  piece 


MAL-EMPLOYMENT    IX    LIBBAEY       215 

not  so  placed  as  to  interfere  with  action.  If  the  ma- 
chine worked  decidedly  better  after  removal,  the  re- 
moved element  must,  have  been  a  clog— was,  in  fact, 
mal-employed. 

How  many  of  us  feel  like  submitting  to  this  test? 
If  yon  should  stop  your  work,  would  the  library  ma- 
chine run  along  quite  as  usual?  Or  would  ii  limp? 
Or  would  it  refuse  to  run  at  all?  Or  would  It— 0 
distasteful  thought!  w«»uid  it  jump  ahead  and  func- 
tion with  greater  speed  and  smoothness? 

I  believe  in  vacations;  and  yet  1  rather  like  to 
feel  that  the  absence  of  an  assistant  on  vacation  makes 
a  difference.  And  if  every  one  in  her  department 
looks  forward  with  fond  expectation  to  lier  return 
and  greets  her  with  looks  of  satisfaction  and  sighs  of 
relief,  I  cannot  help  feeling  that  she  is  a  more  integral 
part  of  the  library  machinery  than  if  her  return  were 
generally  regarded  with  indifference  or  were  dreaded 
as  a  sort  of  calamity.  When  every  one  feels  that  she 
can  work  much  better  when  Miss  Blank  is  away,  I 
am  forced  to  inquire  whether  in  truth  .Miss  Blank  is 
not  a  clog  in  the  wheels  instead  of  a  cog,  and  whether 
a  permanent  vacation  would  not  be  the  proper  thing 
for  her. 

And  how  about  your  library  as  a  whole?  Suppose 
it  should  be  leveled  by  a  tornado,  or  swallowed  up  by 
an  earthquake,  or  swept  away  by  ;i  flood?  What  ef- 
fect would  this  have  on  the  life  of  your  town?  Would 
the  passer-by  point  to  the  ruins,  or  to  tin'  In  le  in  the 
ground  where  once  your  library  stood,  with  the  sum,' 
kind  and  amount  of  interest  that  he  would  show 
when  viewing  the  stump  of  an  old  tree  or  the  frag- 
ments of  a  blasted  boulder?  Or  would  i'm^vy  man,  wo- 
man and  child  led  the  loss?  Would  th 
in  vain  for  aid,  the  merchants  for  information, 
workmen  for  data  of  use  to  them  in  their  daily  task 


216  LIBRARY     ESSAYS 

In  other  words,  is  your  library  of  such  definite 
use  in  the  community  that  it  would  feel  your  loss  as 
it  would  that  of  a  school  house,  a  church,  the  railroad 
station,  the  principal  retail  store?  Or  would  its  loss 
affect  thai  community  only  like  the  destruction  of  the 
monument  on  the  green,  or  the  fence  around  Deacon 
Jones'  pasture? 

If  we  are  to  make  the  library  a  vital  influence  in 
the  community  ,we  must  so  conduct  it  that  its  loss 
would  be  felt  as  a  calamity — that  it  could  be  spared 
no  more  than  the  postoffice  could  be  spared,  or  the 
doctor,  or  the  school.  And  we  must  do  our  best  so  to 
carry  "on  every  part  of  its  work,  every  element  that 
goes  to  make  up  its  service  to  the  public,  that  this 
part  or  element  is  contributing  toward  that  service 
and  not  injuring  it  or  delaying  it.  It  is  better  for 
the  community  that  we  should  be  unemployed  than 
mal-employed,  and  if  the  community  should  ever  find 
out  that  we  are  the  latter,  we  may  be  assured  that  un- 
employment will  shortly  be  our  condition,  whether 
we  like  it  or  not. 


COST  OF  ADMINISTRATION* 

The  possibility  of  deducing  a  general  method  for  cal- 
culating the  probable  cost  of  operation  of  n  library. 

The  problem  of  ascertaining  how  the  cost  of  ad- 
ministration of  a  library  is  related  to  the  various  con- 
ditions and  factors  that  affect  it  is  the  problem  of 
finding  a  formula  in  which,  by  simple  substitution 
of  numbers  representing  or  corresponding  to  these 
conditions,  a  reasonable  or  approximate  cost  may  be 
obtained.  The  data  obtainable  are  the  conditions 
and  actual  cost  in  a  limited  number  of  cases.  The 
obstacles  are  the  difficulty  of  stating  certain  of  the 
conditions  numerically  and  the  difficulty  of  deciding 
on  the  form  of  the  formula,  which  must  be  done  in 
advance. 

We  must  first  agree,  of  course,  that  the  legitimate 
cost  of  administration  of  a  library  should  bear  some 
relation  to  its  conditions  of  work.  Probably  no  one 
would  quarrel  with  this,  but  the  first  thought  of  one 
who  considers  the  subject  is  generally  that  a  large 
number  of  the  conditions  could,  by  their  very  nature, 
not  be  susceptible  of  numerical  statement.  Such  fac- 
tors as  size  of  circulation,  number  of  cardholders, 
size  of  building,  and  so  on,  may  be  stated  directly  in 
figures,  and  many  such  influence  the  cost  of  adminis- 
tration; but  how,  for  instance,  shall  be  stated  numer- 
ically the  character  of  the  locality — whether  foreign 
or  native-born,  wealthy  or  poor,  etc.,  which  ;ilso  in- 
dubitably affects  the  cost?  In  this  particular  case 
this  factor  exerts  its  influence  through  others  that 

*  Report  to  the  American  Library  Institute. 


218  LI  BRAKY     ESSAYS 

may  be  numerically  stated.  So  far  us  it  necessitates 
purchase  of  foreign  books,  a  foreign  population  acts 
to  increase  cost;  so  far  as  the  demand  for  certain 
classes  of  books  is  concerned,  cost  might  be  increased 
or  decreased;  but  size  of  book  collections  and  circula- 
tion arc  both  numerically  determinable.  It  is  pos- 
sible that  all  conditions  which  would  seem  at  first 
sight  not  to  be  numerical  might  reduce  in  this  way, 
to  various  numerical  factors.  Kegarding  the  form  of 
the  function  to  be  used  for  the  formula,  mathema- 
ticians tell  me  that  its  determination  might  prove  a 
great  obstacle.  Personally,  it  seems  to  me  that  it  is 
probably  ''linear,"  that  is,  involving  only  the  first 
powers  of  the  quantities  concerned,  never  their 
squares,  cubes,  etc.  Thns,  all  other  things  being 
equal,  increase  of  book  collection  increase  of  circula- 
tion, increase  of  staff,  etc.,  would  approximately  nieau 
increase  of  cost  in  direct  proportion;  or,  at  any  rate, 
not  in  any  way  involving  powers  above  the  first,  I 
should  try  at  the  outset  therefore,  a  simple  linear 
formula,  such  as 

Ax  plus  By   plus   C:   plus  Du equals  K 

in  winch  ./•  might  be  circulation,  y  number  of  books, 
z  number  in  the  staff,  u  cubic  feet  in  the  building, 
and  so  on.  It  would  then  be  required  to  find  values 
for  A,  B,  C,  D,  etc.  This  would  require,  of  course, 
as  many  equations  as  there  are  of  these  coefficients. 
To  get  each  equation  we  select  a  library  that  we  are 
willing  to  accept  as  being  conservatively  and  proper- 
ly operated,  and  substitute  for  ./•,  y,  etc.,  its  reported 
circulation,  number  of  books,  and  so  on,  putting  in 
place  of  K  its  total  cost  of  administration.  Solution 
of  this  system  of  equations  gives  the  coefficients,  A, 
B,  C,  etc.,  and  furnishes  the  working  formula  re- 
quired. Thereafter  when  we  wish  to  see  whether  a  li- 
brary is  run  as  conservatively  as  the  typical  ones  se- 


cost    OF   ADMINISTRATION  211) 

lected,  its  statistics  would  be  used  to  substitute  for 
•/•,  //.  :.  etc.,  and  the  value  of  R  thus  obtained  would 
be  compared  with  the  actual  cost. 

The  labor  of  reducing  the  system  of  equations 
would  depend  on  their  number,  which  must  equal 
that  of  the  conditions.  This  would  doubtless  be  great 
— possibly  twenty  or  twenty-five,  but  the  work 
amounts  simply  to  doing  a  great  deal  of  figuring. 

I  believe  that  this  thing  is  worth  trying,  and  I  in- 
tend to  try  it  myself  as  soon  as  I  can  secure  the  tieces- 
sary  help  in  doing  the  work  of  figuring,  which  in  any 
<-ase  would  not  be  nearly  as  great  as  that  done  to  cal- 
culate a  comet's  orbit.  Physicists  and  astronomers  arc 
daily  doing  work  of  this  kind,  and  doing  it.  too.  on 
subjects  regarding  which  there  is  quite  as  much  rea- 
son to  doubt  the  applicability  of  the  method  as  in  the 
present  case.  Why  not  try  it?  It  admits  of  satis- 
factory "proving,"  for  if  applied  to  two  groups  of  li- 
braries  with  absurdly  different  results,  it  would  at 
once  be  shown  to  l»e  faulty  as  so  applied. 

I  believe  that  we  librarians  use  the  experimental 
method  too  infrequently.  When  it  is  proposed  to 
make  some  change  <>r  other,  1  constantly  hear  the  ob- 
jection, "That  wouldn't  result  at  all  as  you  expect; 
it  would  do  so-and-so."  But  why  not  try  it?  Try  it 
and  see  what  happens.  That  is  the  only  real  test. 
Of  course,  if  trying  will  cost  a  large  sum.  or  involve 
some  serious  risk,  we  must  count  the  cost,  but  in 
nine  cases  out  of  ten  nothing  is  involved  hut  a  little 
extra  work. 

In  this  case  we  are  toying  our  experiments  daily 
— we  can't  help  it.  We  have  libraries  running  under 
all  kinds  of  conditions  and  we  have  statistical  reports 
of  those  conditions  and  of  the  resulting  cost.  It  is 
surely  worth  while  to  see  if  we  can  not  connect  these 
costs  and   these  conditions  in  some  useful   wav. 


220  LIBRARY     ESSAYS 

I  venture  to  close  with  a  parable.  At  a  national 
meeting  of  civil  engineers  there  was  a  discussion  of 
the  advisability— and  possibility— of  ascertaining  the 
exact  distance  between  New  York  and  Chicago.  In 
the  course  of  the  discussion  it  appeared  that  numer- 
ous measurements  had  already  been  made  for  various 
purposes  by  different  parties  and  under  divers  condi- 
tions. No  two  of  the  results  agreed  precisely.  It 
was  suggested  by  a  speaker  that  some  method  of  com- 
bining the  results  might  be  found  so  as  to  arrive  at 
a  practical  working  estimate  of  the  distance.  Objec- 
tion was  at  once  made  by  various  members.  To  many 
the  very  idea  of  such  a  proposal  seemed  a  bit  of 
pleasantry,  and  they  greeted  it  with  smiles.  One 
speaker  poked  fun  at  the  idea  of  treating  so  practi- 
cal a  question  by  abstract  mathematical  methods. 
Another  pointed  out  that  the  measurements  had  been 
made  with  various  objects  in  view;  some  for  railroad 
purposes,  others  by  government  topographers ;  that  in- 
struments of  varying  makes  had  been  employed  and 
that  the  surveyors  possessed  differing  grades  of  abil- 
ity. He  did  not  see,  therefore,  how  there  was  any 
possibility  of  taking  all  these  into  account.  Still 
another  thought  that  the  best  way  to  get  at  the  real 
distance  was  to  send  out  a  questionnaire  to  persons 
who  had  traveled  from  New  York  to  Chicago  and  find 
out  their  opinions. 

It  seemed  to  be  the  consensus  of  belief  that  we 
should  never  ascertain  the  exact  distance  from  New 
York  to  Chicago,  and  that  it  was  extremely  doubtful 
Whether  there  really  was  any  such  distance.  Prob- 
ably it  varied  from  time  to  time,  which  would  ac- 
count for  the  varying  measurements. 

Is  it  conceivable  that  engineers  would  ever  talk 
in  this  way?    It  is  not. 

But  we  have  all  heard  librarians  do  so.    Why? 


LIBRARY  CIRCULATION  AT  LONG  RANGE 

Is  there  still  a  place  for  the  delivery  station  in 
the  scheme  of  distribution  adopted  by  libraries,  large 
or  small?  This  question  is  pertinent  not  so  much 
because  the  use  of  the  delivery  station  is  being  dis- 
continued, but  because  of  a  general  feeling  that  any 
system  of  book  distribution  that  dors  not  admit  of 
seeing  and  handling  the  books  is  interior  to  a  sys- 
tem in  which  this  is  possible. 

It  will  thus  be  noted  that  the  question  of  the  de- 
livery station  pure  and  simple,  as  opposed  to  the  de- 
posit station  and  the  branch — a  question  once  hotly 
debated — is  at  bottom  simply  that  of  the  closed  shelf 
versus  the  open  shelf.  The  branch  has  won  out  as 
against  the  delivery  station,  and  the  open  as  against 
the  closed  shelf.  It  will  also  be  noted,  however,  that 
none  but  small  libraries  find  it  good  policy  to  place 
all  their  books  on  open  shelves.  There  is  and  always 
will  be  a  use  for  the  closed  shelf  in  its  place,  and  the 
larger  the  library  the  more  obvious  does  that  place 
become. 

Now  circulation  through  a  delivery  station  is 
nothing  but  long-distance  closed-shelf  issue — circu- 
lation in  which  the  distance  between  eharging-desk 
and  stack  has  been  greatly  multiplied.  And  a  legiti- 
mate reason  for  closed-shelf  issue  of  this  kind  is  that 
it  is  carried  on  under  conditions  where  open-shelf 
issne  is  impossible — about  the  only  excuse  for  the 
closed  shelf  in  any  case.  Now  no  matter  how  many 
books  may  be  in  branches  or  in  deposit  stations,  it  is 
obviously  impossible  for  the  whole  central   stock  to 


222  LIBRARY     ESSAYS 

be  at  any  one  of  them,  still  less  to  be  at  all  of  them 
at  the  same  time.  And  there  are  cases  where  it  is  im- 
practicable to  use  any  deposit  at  all,  while  delivery 
from  the  central  library  is  feasible  and  reasonably 
satisfactory.  There  will  always  continue  to  be,  there- 
fore, some  circulation  from  a  distant  reservoir  of 
books  that  cannot  be  seen  and  handled  by  the  reader 
for  purposes  of  selection. 

Under  these  circumstances  it  is  interesting  to  in- 
quire whether  this  type  of  service  has  any  good  points 
to  offset  its  obvious  disadvantages;  and  it  is  consoling 
to  find  that  there  are  such — not  enough  to  cause  us 
to  select  an  unsupported  delivery  station  deliberately 
where  a  deposit  or  a  branch  would  be  possible,  but 
enough  to  satisfy  us  that  a  delivery  station  is  worth 
while  if  we  can  use  nothing  better  and  to  induce  us 
to  lay  stress,  if  we  can,  on  the  particular  features 
that  make  it  satisfactory. 

For  myself,  after  three  years  in  a  library  with  a 
large  station  system,  following  an  experience  in  insti- 
tutions where  there  was  nothing  of  the  kind,  I  may 
say  that  it  has  gratified  and  surprised  me  to  find  that 
personal  contact  between  librarian  and  reader  is  pos- 
sible in  such  a  system,  to  almost  the  same  extent  as 
in  an  open-shelf  library,  although  the  *  contact  is  of 
quite  a  different  quality.  The  quality  of  the  contact 
is  related  to  that  possible  with  the  open-shelf  pre- 
cisely as  mental  contact  by  letter  writing  is  always 
related  to  that  by  conversation.  It  is  superior,  if  any- 
thing, to  that  usually  obtained  in  short-distance 
closed-shelf  circulation,  although  possibly  not  to  that 
obtainable  under  ideal  conditions. 

The  establishment  of  more  or  less  personal  rela- 
tions of  confidence  between  library  assistant  and 
reader  takes  longer  and  is  less  complete  when  the 
sole  intermediary  is  written  language.     It  is  alwavs 


LIBRARY    CIRCULATION  223 

harder  and  requires  more  time  to  become  intimate  by 
letter  than  by  personal  intercourse.     In  the  former 
case  the  contact  is  purely  mental,  in  the  latter  it  is 
affected    by    personal    appearance   and    conduct,    by 
facial  expression  and  manner.    All  this  is  one  of  the 
chief  factors  in  the  success  of  the  open  shelf.     But 
the  advantages  are  not  all  on  the  side  of  the  direct 
persona]  contact,  as  the  correspondence  schools  have 
been   astute   enough   to   find  out.      In    tin-   first   place, 
litera  scripta  manetj  one  may  read  the  same  written 
communication    several    times,    whereas     the     same 
spoken  communication    is    of  and  for  the  moment. 
Then  the  very  fact  that  the  written  message  is  purely 
intellectual   and   has    no    physical    accompaniments 
may  lend  force  to  its  intellectual  appeal,  when   that 
appeal  has  once  gained  a  foothold.     When  this  is  the 
ease  the  writer  may  take  his  time  and  may  plan  his 
campaign  of  influence  more  carefully  than  the  speak- 
er.    The  effect  of  trivial  circumstances,  of  unfavorable 
persona]  elements,  of  momentary  moods,  is  obviated. 
It  may  he,  then,  thai  if  personal  relations  between 
librarian  and  reader  can  he  set  up  through  the  writ- 
ten word,  there  may  he  something  of  this  kind  even 
in  long-distance,  closed-shelf  circulation.     This  rela- 
tion may  be  lacking,  even  when  the  circulation  is  at 
short  range.     It  is  usually  lacking  at  the  closed-shelf 
delivery  desk,  necessarily  so  in  a  rush,  although   at 
quieter  times  there  is  no  good  reason  why  it  should 
not  exist.     I  know  that  it  sometimes  does  exist  under 
these  conditions,   though   a   counter   between    two   hu- 
man beings,  whether  in  a  store,  an  office  or  a  library, 
is  not  conducive  to  relations  of  confidence.     It  may 
even  he  lacking  in   the  open-shelf  room,    when    assis- 
tants on  Moor  duty  have  not  the  proper  spirit  and  a 
due  conception  of  their  own  responsibilities  and  op- 
portunities. 


224  LIRRARY     ESSAYS 

It  may  exist  at  long  range.  Rut  does  it?  I  can 
answer  for  only  one  library;  but  I  have  no  reason  to 
believe  that  our  experience  is  by  any  means  excep- 
tional. Here  are  some  instances,  reported  at  my  re- 
quest from  our  own  Station  Department  by  Miss 
Elsie  Miller,  the  department  chief : 

"  (1)  A  short  time  ago  one  of  the  patrons  of  Sta- 
tion 27  sent  in  a  slip  asking  to  have  his  book  renewed, 
and  requested  that  we  send  him  information  on  peace 
conferences.  The  latter  was  duly  sent,  but  through 
some  error  the  renewal  was  overlooked.  Consequent- 
ly six  days  later  an  overdue  postal  was  mailed.  This 
gentleman  is  always  quite  prompt  in  returning  his 
books,  and  evidently  had  never  before  received  a  no- 
tice. So  he  was  most  perturbed,  and  wrote  us  a  very 
long  letter  explaining  the  mistake.  He  said  that  he 
felt  that  the  librarian  should  know  that  he  was  not 
at  fault,  had  not  broken  the  rules,  and  had  a  clear 
record.  But  in  imparting  this  fact  to  the  librarian, 
he  wanted  it  understood  that  the  assistant  committing 
the  error  should  not  in  any  way  be  punished  for  it, 
because  she  had  helped  him  greatly  in  his  work,  by 
sending  the  very  facts  on  peace  conferences  that  he 
w;is  looking  for.  He  asked  that  the  assistant  be 
praised  for  her  good  work  rather  than  blamed  for  her 
error. 

"  (2)     Celia  R ,  whom  we  have  never  seen  but 

all  feel  well  acquainted  with,  tried  in  vain  for  some 
time  to  borrow  a  certain  little  volume  of  Eskimo 
stories,  but  succeeded  only  in  getting  substitutes. 
About  the  middle  of  December  she  sent  in  with  her 
eard  the  following  request:  'Please  give  me  "Eskimo 
stories,"  because  it  is  Christmas  and  you  never  send 
the  right  book.' 

"  (3)     The  cards  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  M ,  of  Sta- 

ton  54,  come  in  with  a  slip,  'Please  send  a  novel.'    We 


LIBRARY    CIRCULATION  225 

know  that  the  books  musl  be  7-day  adventure  stories, 
and  must  have  publishers'  binding  and  an  interesting 

frontispiece  or  they  will  come  back  to  us  on  the  next 
delivery  unread. 

"  (4)     At  least  one  of  the  S family's  cards  is 

reported  lost  each  week.     We  immediately  recognize 

Mrs.  S 's    voice    when    she    telephones,    and    ask 

whether  it  is  Ralph's  or  Walter's  card  that  is  missing 
this  time.  In  a  tone  of  despair  she  probably  says, 
'No;  it  is  Morris's.'  We  promise  to  look  the  matter 
up  thoroughly.  Then  we  do  no  more  about  it.  After 
two  days  we  call  up  and  tell  her  we  are  xrvy  sorry 
Ave  have  been  unable  to  trace  the  card.  'Oh,  we've 
found  it  here  at  home;  thank  yon  so  much  for  your 
trouble,'  siie  answers.  'And,  by  the  way,  we  have  not 
been  able  to  find  Nicholas'  card  all  day.  '   So  we  look 

up  Nicholas'  card  iu  the  same  way.     No  S card 

was  ever  known  to  be  lost  outside  of  the  S house- 
hold. 

"  (5)  C39  of  Station  6  has  this  note  clipped  to  her 
readers'  index:  'Give  overdue  notices  to  Stations  De- 
partment.' We  hold  her  notices  a  few  days  to  give 
tin'  books  a  chance  to  come  in,  because  she  uses  a.  bi- 
weekly station.  Each  time  that  she  receives  an  over- 
due notice,  it  costs  her  ten  cents  carfare  to  come  to 
the  library  to  investigate,  and  it  costs  the  library  a 
half  hour  of  an  assistant's  time  to  pacify  her.  Our 
new  method  works  beautifully,  and  both  library  and 
reader  find  it  economical. 

"  (6)  An  old  gentleman  of  Station  15  (at  least  we 
have  pictured  him  as  old,  for  it  is  a  trembling  hand 
that  writes  the  titles)  for  a  long  time  sent  in  a  long 
list  of  German  novels  which  we  marked,  'Not  in  cat- 
alog: '  We  were  out  of  printed  German  lists  at  the 
time,  so  selected  a  good  German  novel  and  sent  it.  to 
him.     It  was  immediately  returned.     We  tried  again 


226  LI  BRAKY     ESSAYS 

— in  vain.  Then  again!  We  sent  liim  everything 
that  the  average  German  finds  intensely  interesting. 
But  the  hooks  always  came  back  to  us  on  the  next 
delivery.  One  day  we  substituted  Mm  Busch,'  by  Ger- 
staecker.  Be  kept  it  two  weeks,  and  then  his  card 
came  in  with  a  list  of  Gerstaecker  novels,  copied  from 
the  title-page  of  "Im  Busch."  He  read  all  our  Ger- 
staecker books  and  then  wanted  more.  We  wrote  him 
that  he  had  read  all  tin1  books  of  this  author  and  again 
substituted.  Then  a  fresh  list  of  Gerstaecker  came 
in,  and  now  he  is  reading  all  those  hooks  a  second 
time. 

"  (7)  One  of  the  station  men  watches  our  substi- 
tutions and  looks  over  them  to  get  ideas  for  his  own 
reading.  Once  when  we  had  substituted  Leroux's 
'Mystery  of  the  yellow  room'  the  station  man  ordered 
a  copy  of  that,  book  for  himself,  and  finding  it  inter- 
esting read  all  the  Leroux  books  in  the  library. 

"  (8)  Here  is  a  letter  from  a  youthful  station 
patron  : 

"  'Please  send  me  the  III  Grade,  The  golden  goose 
hook  !     Please  do.  Kisses. 

xxx.1  ' 

These  incidents,  which  of  course  might  be  multi- 
plied indefinitely,  show  at  least  that  the  service  ren- 
dered by  a  delivery  station  is  not,  or  at  any  rate  need 
not  be,  a  mere  mechanical  sending  of  hooks  in  answer 
to  a  written  demand. 

So  much  for  the  element  of  personal  contact  and 
influence.  Next  let  us  consider  for  a  moment  that 
of  actual  contact  with  the  books  from  which  selection 
can  be  made.  This  of  course  does  not  take  place  in 
any  closed-shelf  system — least  of  all  in  one  at  long 
range,  lint  in  certain  cases  this  contact  is  of  no  spe- 
cial advantage.    In  particular,  if  a  reader  wants  one 


LIBRARY    CIRCULATION 

definite  book  and  oo  other,  he  may  get  it  as  bui 
or  be  informed  as  reliably  that  he  cannol  get  ir,  and 
why,  at  a  delivery  station  as  at  a  set  of  open  shelves. 
The  only  drawback  in  "long-range"  work  is  that  the 
user  must  wait  longer  before  lie  can  get  his  book,  pro- 
vided it  is  (»n  the  shelves.  Against  this  wait  must  be 
set  the  time  and  cost  of  a  personal  visit  to  the  dis- 
tant library  building. 

Of  the  "browsing''  contact  there  can  lie  none,  of 
course.  This  seems  n  more  serious  matter  to  me  than 
it  would  be  to  those  who  deprecate  "browsing,"  or  at 
any  pate  discourage  it.  But  there  is  no  question  that 
the  alternative  between  library  and  delivery  station, 
if  squarely  presented,  should  always  he  answered  by 
choosing  the  library.  Here  the  alternative  is  between 
the  delivery  station  and  no  use  at  all.  This  brings 
n\i  another  point : 

May  it  not  he,  in  some  cases,  that  we  really  are 
offering  the  reader  an  alternative  between  delivery 
station  and  library  and  that  through  indolence  he 
takes  the  former?  Doubtless  this  is  often  the  case, 
and  it.  should  not  be  so.  The  location  of  every  delivery 
station  should  be  studied  from  this  standpoint,  and 
its  continuance  should  be  made  a  matter  of  serious 
question.  When  all  is  said  and  done,  there  will  re- 
main some  stations  where  a  minority  of  users  would 
go  to  the  library  if  the  station  were  discontinued,  and 
would  be  benefited  thereby  at  the  expense  of  a  little 
more  exertion.  The  fact  that  there  are  some  real  ad- 
vantages in  long-range  circulation  should  enable  the 
librarian,  in  such  a  case,  to  strike  some  kind  of  a  bal- 
ance, satisfy  himself  that  this  particular  station  is  or 
is  not  of  resultant  benefit  to  the  community,  and  act 
accordingly,  it  is  also  possible,  in  some  cases,  to  com- 
bine the  deposit  feature  with    the    delivery    station. 


LIBRARY     ESSAYS 

•aid  it  goes  without  saying  that  this  should  be  done 
just  as  the  delivery  feature  should  be  added  to  every 
deposit  and  every  branch,  where  it  is  feasible. 

Finally,  the  long  range  circulation  may  be  adapted 
to  the  use  of  the  busy  by  enabling  them  to  kill  two 
birds  with  one  stone.  Libraries  are  always  trying, 
with  doubtful  success,  to  get  hold  of  persons  who  are 
busy  about  something  else — factory  workers,  shop- 
pers, and  so  on.  A  residential  district  is  a  better 
place  for  a  branch  library  than  a  shopping  district, 
although  the  number  of  different  persons  who  pass 
the  door  daily  is  larger  in  the  latter,  because  there  is 
more  leisure  in  the  residence  street — less  preoccupa- 
tion and  bustle.  But  if  it  is  made  possible  for  the 
shopper  to  use  the  library  with  practically  no  delay, 
while  he  is  shopping,  will  he  not  take  advantage  of  the 
opportunity?  A  recent  experiment  in  the  St.  Louis 
Public  Library  convinces  me  that  he  will.  We  are 
now  operating  a  downtown  branch  in  the  book  de- 
partment of  a  large  department  store,  and  we  have 
an  hourly  messenger  service  between  the  library  and 
this  station.  I  believe  this  is  the  first  time  that  such 
frequent  delivery  service  has  been  tried.  This  makes 
it  possible  to  leave  an  order  at  the  beginning  of  a 
shopping  trip  and  to  find  the  book  ready  at  the  close 
of  the  trip.  The  interval  would  never  be  much  over 
an  hour,  and  might  be  as  little  as  fifteen  or  twenty 
minutes. 

There  are  two  favorable  factors  here  which  it 
might  be  difficult  to  secure  elsewhere:  The  shopping 
district  here  is  near  enough  to  the  central  library  to 
make  frequent  delivery  possible,  and  the  management 
of  the  store  where  our  station  is  located  is  broad 
enough  to  see  that  the  possibility  of  borrowing  a  book 
free,  from  the  library,  even  when  presented  as  an  im- 
mediate alternative  to  the  purchase  of  the  same  book 


LIBRARY     CIRCULATION  229 

from  the  counters  of  the  store,  does  not,  in  the  long 
run,  injure  sales. 

It  is  not  absolutely  necessary,  of  course,  to  operate 
this  scheme  from  a  department  store,  neither  is  great- 
er distance  an  absolute  bar  to  frequent  deliveries.  I 
believe  that  this  kind  of  long-distance  service  is  well 
worth  the  attention  of  librarians. 

And,  in  general,  I  believe  that  a  realization  that 
all  long-distance  service  has  its  good  points  may  do 
good  by  inducing  US  to  dwell  on  those  points  and  to 
try  to  make  them  of  more  influence  in  our  work. 


CONFLICTS  OF  JURISDICTION  IN  LIBRARY 
SYSTEMS* 

At  bottom,  a  departmental  system  in  a  large  insti- 
tution is  simply  an  outcome  of  the  fact  that  its  head 
requires  aid  in  administration.  At  first,  perhaps,  he 
can  actually  do  everything  with  his  own  hand;  next 
he  requires  helpers,  but  he  can  oversee  them  all ;  final- 
ly,  he  must  have  overseers,  who  are  the  only  ones  with 
whom  he  deals  directly  and  for  whom  he  naturally 
classifies  the  work  and  divides  it  among  them  accord- 
ingly. This  is  not  merely  a  symbolical  or  fanciful 
account  of  such  a  development.  There  are  plenty  of 
heads  of  institutions,  educational,  commercial  and  in- 
dustrial, who  have  personally  seen  every  stage  of  it 

who  are  now  administering  a  complicated  system  of 
departments  where  they  once  did  everything  them- 
selves. In  particular,  there  are  now  librarians,  at  the 
head  of  great  Libraries,  who  began  library  work  by 
performing,  or  at  least  overseeing  directly,  the  ele- 
mentary acts  of  which  library  operation  may  be  taken 
to  consist,  and  who  have  watched  such  a  simple  sys- 
tem of  superintendence  develop  year  by  year  into 
something  complex. 

Such  a  development,  as  I  have  said,  is  naturally 
based  on  some  kind  of  classification.  If  one  could  sit 
down  and,  foreseeing  the  growth  of  his  institution  for 
years  to  come,  settle  upon  the  way  in  which  that 
growth  should  be  cared  for,  his  classification  might 
possibly  be  more  logical  and  workable  than  most 
classifications  now  are.  The  best  of  them  are  woful- 
ly  imperfect,  as  no  one  knows  better  than  we  libra- 

coa!erencerfMaytl2S,  "m"?  ^^  °f  bran°h  ,ibraries  at  the  Washington 


232  LIBRARY     ESSAYS 

rians.  And  when  division  into  classes  proceeds  pari 
passu  with  growth,  we  are  necessarily  bothered  with 
that  troublesome  tiling — cross-classification.  As  our 
institution  grows,  one  direction  of  growth  and  a  cor- 
responding set  of  conditions  and  needs  conies  into 
the  foreground  after  another,  and  our  basis  of  classi- 
fication is  apt  to  change  accordingly. 

In  the  library,  for  instance,  territorial  expansion 
has  frequently  claimed  the  right  of  way.  It  has  been 
evident  that  wide  regions  within  the  municipality 
were  not  reached  by  the  library's  activities;  hence  the 
establishment  of  branches — practically  classification 
on  a  regional  or  territorial  basis.  Next,  perhaps,  some 
other  need  is  pushed  forward — say,  the  necessity  for 
special  care  given  to  the  children  of  the  community. 
Here  is  a  non-territorial  basis  for  classification, 
founded  only  upon  the  age  of  the  library's  users, 
These  are  not  classes  and  sub-classes,  but  are  entirely 
different  primary  systems  of  classification,  whose  di- 
viding lines  cross  and  do  not  run  parallel.  A  man 
who  should  sit  down  and  try  to  evolve,  at  first  hand, 
some  sort  of  classification  of  library  work,  might 
adopt  one  or  the  other,  but  not  both.  In  one  case  he 
might  divide  his  city  into  districts,  with  district  su- 
perintendents and  local  librarians  under  each;  in  the 
other,  he  might  divide  his  users  by  ages  and  tastes 
and  have  a  superintendent  for  each.  In  neither  case 
would  there  be  cross-classification,  with  its  over-lap- 
ping classes  and  consequent  interferences  of  jurisdic- 
tion. 

But  this  is  not  the  way  that  things  work  out.  The 
librarian  finds  it  necessary  to  have  his  geographical 
subdivisions  and  also  those  based  on  age,  and  he 
adopts  others  also  as  they  appear  desirable,  without 
much  regard  for  the  logic  of  classification.  If  he  does 
take  it  into  account,  he  feels  that  the  troubles  result- 


LIBRARY    JURISDICTION  233 

ing  from  conflicts  of  jurisdiction  will  be  more  easily 
dealt  with  than  those  consequent  upon  a  refusal  to 
respond  to  the  present  demands  of  the  work.  Also— 
and  this  is  an  important  factor— conflicts  of  juris- 
diction, no  matter  how  inevitable,  are  in  the  future, 
and  the  present  demands  of  the  work  look  vastly 
large*  and  press  with  insistence.  Is  there  any  wonder 
that  he  does  what  lies  immediately  before  aim  and 
lets  the  future  take  care  of  itself? 

Unfortunately,  the  future  always  does  take  rare 
of  itself  very  well  indeed,  and   presents  itself  to  de- 
mand a  reckoning  at  the  appointed  time.    The  library, 
for  instance,  that  has  its  branches  for  different  regions 
-and  its  children's  room  in  each  .u'ets  along  well  enough 
so  long  as  its  cross-classification  of  work  exists  only 
on  paper.     Hut  the  time  comes   when    departmental 
organization  must  begin,  and  this  must  be  based  on 
the  classification.     There  may  be  a  superintendent  of 
branches  and  ;i  superintendent  of  children's  work,  or 
the  branch  librarians    may    report    to    the    librarian 
directly,  or  there  may  be  other  dispositions  with  other 
duties  and  names.     In  any  ease,  a  children's  room  at 
a  branch  library  necessarily  finds  itself  in  two  depart- 
ments, under  two  jurisdictions  and  under  two  heads. 
If  the   branch    librarian   and   the   children's  superin- 
tendent are  both  yielding  in  disposition,  the  librarian 
may  never  have  the  conflict  of  jurisdiction  brought  to 
his  attention.     If  either  is  yielding  while  the  other  is 
masterful,  there  will  also  be  no  trouble.     In  one  case 
the  branch   librarian   will  run   the  adult  end  of  her 
branch  and  leave  the  other  to  the  children's  depart- 
ment; in  the  other  there  will  be  one  branch,  at  least, 
where  the  children's  supervisor  has  little  to  say — a 
condition  of  things  that  may  be  tolerated,  but  is  sure- 
ly undesirable.     But  suppose  that  both  heads  are  con- 
scientious, assertive  and  anxious  to  push   the  work. 


234  LIBRARY     ESSAYS 

fond  of  organizing  administrative  details  and  impa- 
tient of  interference.  Here  we  have  the  possibilities 
of  trouble  at  once. 

The  first  rumblings  of  the  storm  come  usually  in 
the  form  of  complaints  of  interference,  on  the  one 
side  or  the  other.  Then  we  have  a  demand  from  both 
sides  for  a  definition  of  their  respective  rights  and 
responsibilities.  The  librarian  is  asked,  for  instance, 
in  just  what  respects  the  children's  librarian  shall 
take  her  orders  from  the  branch  librarian  and  in  what 
from  the  supervisor.  This  is  a  good  deal  like  peti- 
tioning the  legislature  to  pass  a  law  specifying-  exactly 
when  a  child  shall  obey  his  father  and  when  the  mayor 
of  the  city.  The  librarian  who  enters  on  this  plaus- 
ible path  will  sooner  or  later  be  lost  in  the  jungle. 
He  has  only  himself  to  thank.  Either  he  or  his  pre- 
decessor started  the  game  and  he  must  play  it  out  to 
the  end.  We  librarians  are  all  responsible  for  each 
other's  faults.    Let  us  see  how  he  may  play  it. 

In  the  first  place,  his  is  the  power.  What  is  done 
in  any  department  is  done  by  his  orders  or  by  the  or- 
ders of  some  one  endowed  by  him  with  authority  to 
give  orders.  He  has  given  two  persons  authority  over 
the  same  field  at  one  point,  and  it  is  his  business  to 
straighten  things  out.     Here  are  some  possible  ways: 

1.  The  authority  of  one  head  may  be  absolutelv 
extinguished  in  the  field  where  conflict  exists.  Here 
we  have  legalized  the  state  of  things  described  above 
as  existing  with  a  combination  of  one  spineless  de- 
partment-head and  one  very  spiny  one.  It  works,  but 
at  the  expense  of  everything  that  tends  to  the  effi- 
ciency of  the  extinguished  authority,  and  I  do  not 
recommend  it. 

2.  An  attempt  may  be  made,  as  noted  above,  to 
draw  a  line  between  the  two  spheres  of  authority  and 
keep  each  in  its  place.    This  appeals  to  those  who  are 


LIBRARY    JURISDICTION  235 

fond  of  detail,  for  it  can  be  done  only  by  considering 
and  ticketing  details.     A  line,  denned  by  some  one 

clear  principle,  cannot  be  drawn  in  a  field  <»f  this  kind 
between  two  things  both  of  which  logically  cover  that 
field.  It  is  logical  that  the  children's  librarian  in  a 
branch  should  be  wholly  under  the  authority  of  the 
branch  librarian,  since  she  is  a  branch  employe  like 
the  others.  It  is  just  as  Logical  thai  she  should  be 
wholly  under  the  authority  of  the  supervisor,  of 
whose  department  she  is  a  part,  If  we  are  to  define 
the  things  in  which  she  is  to  obey  the  one  and  the 
other,  they  must  be  enumerated  one  by  one.  And  then 
other  things  will  turn  up  that  have  not  been  thus 
enumerated,  and  we  are  in  trouble  again.  This  plan, 
as  I  have  said,  appeals  to  those  who  revel  in  regula- 
tions and  specifications,  but  I  can  recommend  it  no 
more  than  the  other. 

3.  One  department  may  formally  and  distinctly 
be  set  above  the  other.  Or,  what  is  the  same  thing, 
the  librarian  may  resolve,  when  a  conflict  arises,  al- 
ways to  decide  the  matter  in  favor  of  one  particular 
department.  This  means,  in  the  special  case  that  we 
have  been  using  as  an  illustration,  either  that  the 
children's  department  shall  be  allowed  to  do  nothing 
in  a  branch  library  without  the  consent  of  the  branch 
librarian,  or  of  the  supervisor  of  branches,  if  there 
is  one;  or  that  all  questions  involving  the  administra- 
tion of  a  branch  children's  room  must  depend  ul- 
timately on  the  chief  of  the  children's  department. 

This  may  seem  to  be  the  same  as  the  plan  by  which 
the  authority  of  oik1  department  is  absolutely  done 
away  in  the  disputed  sphere.  It  is  of  the  same  type, 
but  not  so  drastic.  In  the  other  plan  one  has  not 
authority  to  do  anything;  in  this,  one  must  ask  per- 
mission— not  the  same  thing  by  any  means.  This 
plan    is   practically   in    effect    at   some   libraries;    it 


236  LIBRARY     ESSAYS 

would  probably  be  regarded  as  equitable  by  most  de- 
partment heads — provided  their  own  department 
were  put  ahead  of  the  other.  The  trouble  is  that  it 
involves  an  arbitrary  subordination — one  that  does 
not  exist  in  the  nature  of  the  classification.  And 
this  subordination  is  local  and  partial ;  it  cannot 
hold  good  for  the  whole  department.  No  one  would 
think  of  placing  the  branch  department,  as  a  whole, 
under  the  children's  department,  or  vice  versa.  And 
the  objections,  although  not  so  strong  as  those  to  the 
extinguishment  plan,  are  of  the  same  kind.  The  ef- 
ficiency of  one  department  or  the  other  is  bound  to 
suffer,  and  for  this  reason  I  do  not  consider  this  the 
best  plan. 

4.  All  department  heads  in  conflicting  spheres, 
may  be  regarded  simply  as  advisers  of  the  librarian 
and  not  as  possessing  authority  in  themselves  to  give 
orders.  A  conflict  is  thus  reduced  to  contradictory 
advice  from  two  sources.  The  librarian  then  pursues 
whatever  course  seems  good  to  him.  This  plan  has 
attractive  features,  especially  to  administrators  of 
the  type  that  like  to  keep  a  finger  in  every  pie.  There 
is  doubtless  danger  in  aloofness.  The  librarian  must 
know  what  is  going  on,  but  I  see  no  advantage  in  re- 
quiring him  to  decide  questions  of  trivial  detail  at 
frequent  intervals,  as  he  must  do  under  this  plan ;  for 
conflicts  generally  begin  in  questions  of  detail  and  it 
is  at  the  beginning  or  even  earlier,  in  anticipation, 
that  they  must  be  caught  and  adjusted.  This  plan 
works,  but  it  reduces  the  department  head  to  a  con- 
sulting expert  and  burdens  the  librarian  with  detail. 
It  does  not  appeal  to  me  at  all. 

5.  The  two  conflicting  departments  may  co- 
operate, intelligently  and  courteously  without  sacri- 
fice of  authority  or  self -respect,  under  the  advice  and 
orders  of  the  librarian. 


LIBBABY   JUBISDICTIOH  237 

This  is  the  plan  that  I  recommend.  It  is  the 
most  difficult  of  all,  and  no  regulations  <>r  specifica- 
tions can  be  formulated  for  carrying  it  out.  For  this 
reason  it  will  never  be  widely  in  favor.     A  wicked 

and  rebellious  generation  demands  a  sign,  and  in  this 
plan  there  is  neither  sign  nor  formula  except  that 
general  prinicple  of  helpfulness  and  willingness  to 
place  the  common  whole  above  the  selfish  part  that 
is  at  the  antipodes  of  both  wickedness  and  rebellion. 
It  is  a  personal  matter  and  it  adds  one  important 
qualification  to  those  already  accessary  in  depart- 
ment heads — the  ability  to  do  team  work.  This  quali- 
fication, however,  is  so  important,  quite  apart  from 
its  necessity  in  connection  with  this  plan,  that  we  may 
consider  it  an  advantage,  rather  than  otherwise,  that 
the  plan  puts  it  forward  and  insists  upon  it.  On  the 
whole  I  think  that  a  library  witli  mediocre  depart- 
ment heads  having  this  qualification  is  better 
manned,  and  will  do  more  satisfactory  work  than  one 
with  a  staff  of  supremely  able  experts,  cranky,  self- 
centered  and  all  pulling  different  ways.  The  efforts 
of  members  of  a  body  like  a  library  staff  are  not  to  be 
measured  arithmetically — they  are  what  mathemati- 
cians call  "vectors" — directed  quantities,  like  force, 
velocity  or  acceleration.  To  know  where  a  man  will 
bring  up  one  must  have  not  only  his  speed,  but  its 
direction.  The  sum  of  two  equal  forces  may  be  any- 
thing from  zero  up  to  their  double,  depending  on  their 
relative  directions,  and  if  the  sum  is  zero,  no  matter 
how  large  the  components  may  be,  the  result  is  pre- 
cisely the  same  as  if  those  components  are  small,  or 
as  if  neither  existed.  It  is  this  sort  of  thing  that  an 
eminent  employer  of  labor  had  in  mind  when  he  ad- 
vised, "If  two  of  your  subordinates  don't  get  along 
together,  discharge  both  of  them,  no  matter  how  good 
they    are."      In    this    man's    estimation    the    relative 


238  LIBRARY     ESSAYS 

value  of  team  work  evidently  stands  pretty  high.  I 
should  not  follow  ids  advice,  however,  without  giving 
everyone  a  fair  chance.  I  have  known  the  opinions 
of  one  department  head  about  another  and  their 
ability  to  work  together  to  improve  greatly  on  ac- 
quaintance. 

The  part  necessarily  played  by  the  librarian  in 
this  scheme  may  be  regarded  by  some  as  an  objection. 
1  have  already  referred  to  administrators  who,  like 
the  late  Czar  of  Russia,  prefer  to  regulate  all  the  de- 
tails of  the  kingdom  by  personal  supervision.  There 
is  also  the  precisely  opposite  type,  who  like  to  make 
■a  good  machine,  set  it  going,  and  then  let  it  alone. 
The  trouble  is  that  machines  will  not  run  of  them- 
selves. They  need  oversight,  oiling,  cleaning  and  re- 
pairing. The  best  require  a  minimum  of  all  this,  but 
all  must  have  some  of  it.  Aud  such  machinery  as 
there  is  in  this  plan  requires  a  maximum  of  over- 
sight. It  is,  however,  not  the  control  of  details  but 
rather  the  watching  of  general  methods  and  results. 
Is  everything  running  smoothly,  without  "lost  mo- 
tion'' or  "backlash,"  and  turning  out  a  satisfactory 
finished  product?  If  not,  can  the  trouble  be  located? 
Yes;  these  two  cogs  do  not  work  smoothly  together. 
Let  us  find  out  which  is  at  fault  and  adjust  or  re- 
place it;  but  if  our  investigation  is  fruitless,  possibly 
the  best  plan  is  to  discard  both. 

I  trust  I  have  misled  no  one  by  treating  here 
specifically  of  two  departments.  I  might  have  substi- 
tuted the  names  of  a  dozen  others.  All  through 
library  administration,  and  especially  in  the  admin- 
istration of  a  system  of  branch  libraries,  these  possi- 
bilities of  conflict  occur.  In  branches  they  are  gener- 
ally between  the  branch  administration  and  the  cen- 
tral departments — finance,  supplies,  cataloging,  hook- 
orders,  reference   and  circulation. 


LIBRARY    JURISDICTION  239 

The  handling  of  this  whole  mutter  depends,  of 
course,  on  the  librarian.  II"  it  must  be  who  is  to  de- 
cide on  general  policies  or  go  to  his  Board  for  a  de- 
cision in  eases  so  important  that  he  feels  their  ac- 
tion necessary.  If  the  work  of  departments  overlaps 
in  some  field  where  the  library's  policy  has  not  yet 
been  decided  upon  and  defined,  lie  has  no  one  to 
blame  hut  himself  if  the  adjustment  is  difficult.  And 
if  policies  are  defined  in  advance  ami  pains  taken  to 
hiform  department  heads  thoroughly  of  their  ex- 
istence and  import,  the  likelihood  of  serious  disagree- 
ment will  be  considerably  lessened. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten,  also,  that  the  success 
of  any  plan  may  be  increased  or  diminished  by  skill, 
or  lack  of  skill,  in  handling  it. 

I  am  confident  that  any  of  the  plans  about 
which  J  have  spoken  unfavorably  above  would  work 
better  under  a  good  librarian  than  the  best  would 
work  under  a  bad  one.  But  I  forget  myself;  we  li- 
brarians are  like  Kentucky  whiskey— some  are  bet- 
ter than  others,  but  there  are  no  bad  ones! 


THREE   KINDS  OF    LIBRARIANS* 

The  human  eye  is  so  constituted  that  it  can 
see  clearly  but  a  small  part  of  the  field  of  vision  at 
one  time.  We  have  Learned  by  habit  to  move  it 
about  quickly  ;ni<l  comprehensively,  so  that  unless 
our  attention  is  called  to  the  fact  we  do  not  realize 
this  limitation;  but  it  exists.  In  like  manner,  it  is 
difficult  for  the  human  mind  to  take  a  comprehensive 
view  of  a  subject.  We  are  apt  to  fix  upon  some  one 
feature  and  ignore  the  rest.  In  recent  times  we  have 
been  devoting  our  attention  to  the  personal  element. 
We  talk  about  the  "man  behind  the  gun"  a  good  deal. 
I  would  not  underrate  him  or  what  he  can  do;  but  it 
is  surely  necessary  to  have  the  gun  itself  before  the 
man  behind  it  can  be  effective.  In  fact,  the  man  per 
se  is  about  the  most  helpless  of  animals.  His  super- 
iority to  the  mere  brute  lies  iii  liis  ability  to  use  tools; 
his  inferiority  in  the  fact  that  he  can  do  almost  noth- 
ing without  them.  A  man  with  a  gun  is  indeed  for- 
midable; a  wildcat  can  do  nothing  with  such  a  tool, 
but  then  he  is  reasonably  formidable  without  it.  I 
have  yielded  thus  to  the  temptation  to  depreciate  the 
personal  (dement,  somewhat,  at  the  beginning  of  an 
address  in  which  it  is  to  be  discussed,  because  this 
defect  of  the  human  mind,  that  tends  to  fix  it  upon 
one  feature  to  the  exclusion  of  others,  has  of  late  ap- 
parently led  many  to  think  that  a  man  is  valuable  in 
himself  and  by  himself,  without  anything  to  work 
with  or  anything  to  work  on. 

A  man   is  making  a    failure  of  his  job;   the  first 

•Read  before   the  Missouri  Library  Association,  Sedalia.    No 
18.    1914. 


242  LIBRARY     ESSAYS 

thought  is  that  he  must  be  replaced.  Nine  persons 
out  of  ten  fail  to  inquire  whether  anyone  at  all  could 
have  succeeded  under  the  same  conditions.  Your 
cook  prepares  an  inedible  meal;  you  rage  and  call 
loudly  for  a  new  regime  in  the  kitchen  ;  whereas  all 
the  time  your  competent  servant  lias  been  struggling 
with  a  faulty  range,  tough  meat  and  bad  flour. 

Shall  we,  then,  sit  down  and  refuse  to  do  any- 
thing at  all  unless  our  tools  and  our  materials  are 
of  the  best?  By  no  means;  one  of  the  chief  distinc- 
tions between  a  capable  and  an  inefficient  worker  lies 
in  the  ability  of  the  former  to  make  the  best  of  un- 
promising conditions.  No  one  can  do  as  well  with 
poor  tools  and  materials  as  with  good  ones;  but  the 
good  worker  will  turn  out  a  better  job  with  the  for- 
mer than  the  inefficient  one  will. 

These  things  apply  of  course  to  the  library  worker 
as  to  all  others,  especially  to  librarians  in  small 
towns  where  tools  and  materials  are  apt  to  be  not 
of  tlte  best.  Among  tools  we  may  reckon  buildings, 
books,  and  all  kinds  of  library  appliances.  The 
material  is  the  community  on  which  the  librarian  by 
proper  use  of  her  tools,  aims  to  produce  a  certain  ef- 
fect. 

Now  it  is  open  to  such  a  worker  to  view  her  task 
from  any  one  of  three  different  standpoints — to 
choose,  we  will  say,  from  three  different  kinds  of 
librarianship.  She  may  be  a  librarian  of  the  day  be- 
fore yesterday,  of  yesterday,  or  of  to-day. 

The  librarian  of  the  day  before  yesterday  is  the 
librarian  of  a  part  of  the  community.  Not  only  does 
she  make  no  effort  to  encourage  the  use  of  her 
library,  but  she  distinctly  discourages  certain  per- 
sons, and  certain  classes  of  persons,  from  entering 
it.  This  grade  of  librarian  includes  as  many  kinds 
as  there  are  persons  or  classes  of  tlte  community  that 


THREE    KINDS    OF    LIBRABIANS       243 

may  be  discouraged.  Some,  for  instance,  exclude  all 
the  poorly-dressed,  or  all  of  inferior  social  status; 
others  welcome  just  these  and  exclude  the  well-dress- 
ed and  well-to-do.  The  philanthropic  donor  of  a  city 
branch  library  building  once  waxed  very  wroth  when 
she  saw  a  carriage  standing  in  front  of  the  building. 
Her  library,  she  said,  was  for  the  poor,  not  for  "car- 
riage people." 

These  ways  of  looking  at  things  are  sometimes  an 
inheritance  from  former  conditions.  A  subscription 
library  turned  into  a  free  public  library  hesitates  to 
welcome,  all  at  once,  the  lower  strata 'that  have  so 
long  been  banished  from  its  doors.  On  the  other 
hand,  a  public  library  that  has  developed  from  a 
charitable  foundation  regards  these  as  its  proper 
users  and  looks  askance  at  the  well-to-do,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  good  lady  with  her  "carriage  people." 

When  I  speak  of  the  exclusion  of  a  class  of  per- 
sons, I  do  not  mean  that  they  are  formally  kept  out 
or  even  consciously  discouraged;  this  is  why  it  is  so 
easy  to  be  a  librarian  of  the  day  before  yesterday. 
That  day  was  a  comfortable  day;  an  easy  day  to  be 
self-satisfied  in;  it  had  its  libraries  for  the  rich  and 
its  libraries  for  the  poor.  Some  class  was  always 
named,  even  if  some  were  always  left  (tut. 

It  may  be  that  the  exclusion  operates  through 
features  that  are  in  themselves  excellent.  I  have 
seen,  in  a  small  community,  a  library  building  so 
fine,  with  such  an  atmosphere  «>f  quiet  good-taste  and 
so  lady-like  a  librarian,  that  the  great  public  no  more 
dared  to  enter  therein  than  if  a  fierce  lion  had  stood 
in  the  doorway.  I  have  known  libraries,  too,  in 
which  the  books  were  too  good.  Certain  classes  in  the 
community  were  not  intellectually  up  to  them. 

I  have  also  known  libraries  that  were  never  used 
by   the   foreigners   in    their   communities,    or   by    the 


244  LIBRARY     ESSAYS 

colored  people.  These  latter,  strange  to  say,  were 
largely  in  the  North.  The  South  recognizes  the 
Negro  and  pays  him  much  attention — in  its  way.  It 
settles  his  status  and  sees  that  it  is  observed.  He 
has  the  last  four  seats  on  the  trolley  car  and  he  has 
his  separate  library  accommodations.  In  the  North 
he  is  on  an  equality  with  the  white  man — in  every- 
thing but  reality.  He  is  welcomed  to  the  library  in 
theory  and  he  does  not  use  it  in  practice.  I  fear  that 
in  this  respect  too  many  of  us  belong  to  the  day  be- 
fore yesterday. 

I  trust  that  I  have  made  it  clear  that  the  librarian 
of  day-before-yesterday  is  not  a  bad  librarian.  He 
or  she  is  just  a  librarian  of  day  before  yesterday — 
that  is  all. 

Now  we  will  step  into  one  of  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells' 
"Time  machines"  and  take  a  short  spin  ahead  into  yes- 
terday. The  librarian  of  yesterday  excludes  no  one 
at  all  from  his  library;  for  he  is  within  one  step  of 
being  up-to-date.  He  discourages  no  person  nor  any 
class  of  persons.  He  stands  in  his  doors  with  out- 
stretched arms  and  announces  that  his  library  is  free 
to  all,  that,  it  has  books  for  all — rich  and  poor,  old 
and  young,  barbarian,  Scythian,  bond  and  free.  The 
selection  of  books  is  well  thought-out  and  adapted  to 
the  community  in  which  it  is.  The  accommodations 
are  ample  and  fitting.  Everyone  is  welcome.  What 
more  could  you  ask?  Nothing  at  all;  provided  you 
are  still  in  yesterday.  lresterday  this  sort  of  library 
was  regarded  as  the  last  word  in  the  popularization 
of  the  book,  and  it  is  indeed  a  long  step  in  advance 
of  day-before-yesterday.  The  librarian's  material  is 
before  him;  he  has  good  books;  is  more  needed  than 
this?  Yea,  verily.  One  may  have  a  nail  and  a  ham- 
mer to  drive  it;  also  an  egg,  and  a  pan  to  fry  it,  yet 
one   cannot   frv    the   egg   with    the    hammer.      Some 


THREE    KINDS    OF    LIBRARIANS       245 

selective  action  is  necessary  before  we  can  attain  the 
result  that  we  want.  A  minister,  presiding  at  a  wed- 
ding,  in  which  several  couples  were  to  he  united  at 
once,  read  the  marriage  service  and  then  exclaimed: 
"I  pronounce  yon  men  ami  wives;  now  you  can  sort 
yourselves.'"  The  trouble  is  that  things  will  not  "sort 
themselves'*;  they  must  have  some  one  to  sort  them 
— and  this  is  what  is  the  matter  with  the  library  and 
the  librarian  of  yesterday.  They  fail  to  make  con- 
nection between  the  man  and  the  book,  so  that  part 
of  the  fine  collection  remains  wholly  or  relatively 
unused,  and  part  of  the  community  that  it  ought 
to  serve  remains  apart  from  the  library,  despite  the 
librarian's  outstretched  arms  and  his  words  of  wel- 
come. If  he  had  read  his  Bible  as  his  great-grand- 
parents used  to  do,  lie  would  have  realized  that  i<» 
fill  the  table  at  the  wedding  feast  of  literature  and 
life  a  simple  invitation  sufficeth  not.  We  must  go 
out  into  the  highways  and  hedges  and  compel  them 
to  come  in.  The  attitude  of  passive  expectancy,  of 
ability  and  willingness  to  serve  those  who  come,  was 
well  enough  for  yesterday,  but  not  for  the  new 
library  day  that  has  dawned  in  these  United  States 
of  America.  Apparently  the  library  dawn  moves 
eastward  as  the  physical  day  moves  westward,  for 
over  in  the  mother  country  only  a  few  lofty  peaks 
are  yet  gilded  by  its  sunshine.  Even  in  our  own  land 
there  an1  gorges  where  the  dnsk  lingers;  there  are 
even  grottoes  where  darkness  will  always  be.  But  we 
are  mostly  in  the  light.  We  realize  that  if  we  have 
a  book  on  the  dyeing  of  textile  fabrics  and  if  there  is 
an  unheeding  man  in  our  community  who  would  be 
helped  by  that  book,  all  the  complacent  receptivity 
that  we  can  muster  will  not  suffice  to  bring  them 
together.  And  with  this  knowledge  conies  an 
awakening  of  conscience.     Long  ago  we  stopped  cry- 


246  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

ing  out  "Am  1  my  brother's  keeper?"  We  realize 
that  as  members  of  the  community  we  must  bear  our 
share  of  responsibility  for  what  is  done  in  the  com- 
munity and  that  collectively  we  must  take  measures 
for  the  community's  welfare.  Each  of  us  is  a  Roman 
dictator,  in  that  it  is  our  business  to  see  that  the 
Republic  suffers  no  harm.  Thus  the  community  ap- 
points special  officers  to  look  out  for  the  interests  of 
its  members  in  certain  directions.  We  public  libra- 
rians are  such  officers.  We  are  proud  of  saying  that 
we  stand  on  the  same  plane  as  the  teachers  in  our 
schools  and  the  professors  in  our  colleges;  nay,  even 
a  little  higher,  for  the  facilities  for  education  over 
which  we  preside  are  offered  long  after  school  and 
college  years  are  over. 

Now  the  teacher  does  not  stand  in  the  doorway 
and  announce  that  she  is  willing  and  ready  to  instruct 
all  who  may  so  desire  in  reading,  writing  and  arith- 
metic— that  she  has  a  well-equipped  schoolroom, 
blackboards,  globes  and  textbooks  for  all  who  will 
take  advantage  of  them.  Not  so ;  the  community  goes 
out  and  compels  its  members  to  take  advantage  of  all 
these  things.  In  like  manner,  also,  the  community 
makes  all  sorts  of  laws  for  its  own  preservation  and 
betterment;  it  does  not  say  "See,  here  are  good  laws; 
come  ye  who  will  and  obey  them."  On  the  contrary 
it  goes  out  into  highways  and  hedges  and  sees  that  all 
its  members  obey. 

I  would  not  push  this  analogy  too  far.  No  one 
expects  that  the  community  will  require  that  every 
one  within  its  borders  shall  use  the  public  library  so 
many  times  a  month,  or,  indeed  that  it  shall  be  used 
at  all.  The  nature  of  the  institution  precludes  such 
compulsion.  But  it  should  require  that  every  effort 
be  made  to  see  that  no  section  of  the  books  on  the 
library  shelves  shall  lie  idle  and  that  no  section  of  the 


THREE    KINDS    OF    LIBRARIANS       247 

community  shall  fail  to  use  books,  either  through  ig- 
norance or  through  doubt  of  a  welcome. 

The  librarian  should    say:    Bere    is    an    unused 

book.  Is  it  without  value  in  this  community?  Then 
let  it  male  place  for  a  better.  Has  it  value?  Then 
why  is  it  not  used?  Somewhere,  in  this  community, 
is  the  man,  woman  or  child,  who,  whether  realizing 
it  or  not,  would  derive  pleasure  or  profit,  or  both 
from  reading  it.  It  is  my  business  to  seek  oul  that 
person. 

Again:  Here  is  a  man  who  does  not  read  books. 
Is  this  because  no  book  would  appeal  to  him?  Im- 
possible! He  may  think  so,  but  there  lives  no  one 
to  whom  the  soul  of  some  fellow  man,  speaking 
through  the  printed  page,  will  not  bring  a  welcome 
message.  Is  there  such  a  book  on  my  shelves?  If  so, 
it  is  my  business  to  get  it  into  that  man's  hands;  if 
not,  I  must  buy,  beg  or  borrow  it  as  soon  as  I  may. 

When  the  librarian  has  begun  to  talk  in  this  fash- 
ion, lo!  the  dawn  is  shining,  he  is  a  librarian  of  to- 
day. The  librarian  of  to-day  frowns  on  no  one,  dis- 
courages no  one;  and  he  stands  not  passively  at  his 
door  with  open  arms.  He  walks  through  his  library; 
he  walks  through  his  town.  He  knows  the  books  in 
one  and  the  dwellers  in  the  other,  and  he  knows  both 
in  their  relationships,  actual  and  possible.  If  there. 
are  disused  books  on  his  shelves  or  non-readers  in  his 
community,  it  is  not  because  he  has  made  no  effort 
to  bring  them  together;  his  failures  are  not  those  of 
negligence. 

The  other  day,  sitting  in  a  stalled  trolley  car,  my 
eye  fell  upon  a  street-cleaner,  and  I  began  to  watch 
him  with  interest.  He  was  busy — apparently,  I  was 
going  to  say,  but  that  does  him  injustice.  He  was 
really  busy.  While  I  watched  him — and  the  ear  was 
delayed   for  some  little  time— he   was  constantly  at 


248  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

work,  pushing  over  the  asphalt  the  broad  scraper  that 
was  intended  to  rid  it  of  dust  and  refuse.  And  yet 
lie  did  not  clean  the  street,  for  he  took  no  account  of 
the  inequalities  of  its  surface.  These  required  in- 
telligent  adaptation  of  his  movements  at  every  in- 
stant, and  to  this  he  paid  no  attention.  He  went 
through  the  motions ;  his  actual  expenditure  of  physi- 
cal energy  was  probably  as  great  as  if  he  had  mixed 
a  little  brain-work  with  it,  but  it  failed  to  accomplish 
what  it  ought,  simply  from  that  lack.  And  yet  it 
would  have  been  difficult  for  any  overseer  to  give  him 
orders  that  w^ould  have  bettered  the  matter.  It  would 
have  been  hard  to  point  out  at  any  given  instant,  his 
errors  of  commission  or  of  omission.  The  only  w^ay 
in  which  one  could  tell  that  he  was  not  doing  his 
work  properly  was  by  the  result.  He  was  put  there 
to  clean  the  street — and  the  street  was  not  cleaned. 

So  with  the  librarians  of  yesterday  and  the  day 
before.  They  are  hard  workers,  not  idlers.  They 
have  the  tools,  and  they  go  through  the  motions. 
They  may  tire  themselves  out  with  their  labor.  Their 
library  buildings  may  be  attractive  and  clean;  their 
technique  perfect,  their  books  well  selected  and  in 
good  order,  their  catalogs  excellent,  It  is  hard  to 
point  to  any  one  thing  that  they  are  doing  incorrectly 
or  that  they  are  omitting.  And  yet  we  must  judge 
their  work  by  its  fruits ;  they  are  put  into  a  commun- 
ity of  actual  or  potential  readers  in  charge  of  a  col- 
lection of  books.  What  are  these  for,  if  not  to  be  read? 
Yet  many  remain  untouched.  For  what  purpose  have 
the  schools  taught  the  townspeople  to  read?  Thou- 
sands of  them  make  no  good  use  of  that  knowledge. 
To  the  librarian  of  to-day  the  non-realization  of  this 
and  the  lack  of  effort  to  remedy  it  mean  failure.  In 
order  to  make  a  little  more  definite  our  ideas  of  these 
three  kinds  of  librarians,  let  us  consider  one  or  two 


THREE    KINDS    OF     LIBRARIANS       2i.) 

very  practical  problems  and  see  how  each  would  prob- 
ably view  them  and  act  upon  them. 

First.    The  Library  circulates  no  hooks  on  plumb- 
ing.   For  the  librarian  of  the  day  before  yesterday, 

this  is  no  problem  at  all.  Probably  his  library  has 
no  books  on  plumbing.  His  library  is  not  for  plumb- 
ers, and  he  has  never  suspected  that  it  could  be.  As 
for  the  plumbers  in  his  community,  they  too  have 
never  considered  the  possibility  that  they  might  learn 
something  of  their  work  from  books  in  a  public  libra- 
ry. They  are  therefore  silent  and  uncomplaining. 
Peace  reigns  and  there  is  a  general  state  of  satisfac- 
tion all  around — the  satisfaction  of  blissful  ignorance 
and  of  the  day  before  yesterday. 

The  librarian  of  yesterday,  on  the  other  hand,  sees 
the  problem  clearly  and  is  concerned  about  it.  He  has 
good  books  on  plumbing  and  nobody  reads  them. 
Evidently  the  more  advanced  grade  of  the  librarian 
has  not  affected  the  plumbers — they  still  remain  in 
ignorance  of  the  public  library.  But  what  is  he  to 
do?  Here  is  the  library;  here  are  the  books;  here  is 
the  librarian,  ready  and  willing  to  distribute  them 
to  all  who  may  come.  If  the  generation — or  any  part 
of  it — is  so  wicked  and  perverse  that  it  comes  not, 
what  is  there  to  do?  What,  indeed!  And  so  library 
and  community  remain  in  the  twilight  of  yesterday 
just  before  the  dawn. 

The  librarian  of  to-day  not  only  sees  the  problem 
and  is  concerned  about  it,  but  he  proceeds  to  do  some- 
thing. Just  what  he  does  or  how  he  does  it  is  of  far 
less  consequence  than  the  fact  that  he  sees  action  in 
the  matter  to  be  necessary  and  possible.  He  may  go 
personally  and  interview  the  plumbers;  he  may  send 
them  lists;  he  may  get  permission  to  address  the 
plumbers'  union;  he  may  do  one  or  many  of  a  thou- 
sand things  to  remedy  matters,  and  although  it  is  cer- 


250  LIBRARY     ESSAYS 

tain  that  what  he  does  will  not  be  completely  effect- 
ive, it  is  equally  certain  that  it  will  have  some  good 
effect,  which  is  the  main  thing. 

Problem  Second.  Examination  of  the  registry  list 
shows  that  there  are  practically  no  card  holders  in  a 
certain  part  of  the  town.  As  in  the  former  case,  this 
is  no  problem  at  all  to  the  day  before  yesterday  libra- 
rian. Its  existence  would  in  general  not  appear  to 
him,  certainly  not  as  the  result  of  any  kind  of  statis- 
tical investigation.  If  he  were  informed  of  it  he  would 
regard  the  fact  with  complacency.  The  library  is  for 
readers,  and  if  certain  persons  are  non-readers  they 
had  better  keep  away.  Nothing  could  be  simpler. 
The  librarian  of  yesterday,  on  the  other  hand,  feels 
that  all  is  not  right.  It  is  certainly  too  bad  that 
when  library  privileges  are  offered  free  to  all,  so  large 
a  portion  of  the  community  should  fail  to  take  advan- 
tage of  them.  The  library  stands  ready  to  help  these 
people,  if  they  will  only  come.    Why  don't  they? 

The  librarian  of  yesterday  thus  stops  with  a  ques- 
tion; the  librarian  of  to-day  proceeds  to  answer  it. 
He  finds  out  why  they  don't  come.  .  He  may  discover 
one  or  more  of  any  number  of  things;  whatever  may 
be  the  causes,  they  are  sure  to  be  interesting,  at  least 
to  him,  for  the  to-day  librarian  is  a  born  investiga- 
tor. It  may  be  that  the  non-readers  are  literate,  but 
take  no  interest  in  books ;  perhaps  they  say  they  have 
no  time  to  read ;  possibly  the  library  has  not  the  kind 
of  books  that  they  like;  they  may  be  foreigners,  read- 
ing no  English,  and  the  library  may  have  no  books  in 
their  tongue.  Whatever  the  trouble  may  be,  the  libra- 
rian of  to-day  sets  about  to  remedy  it.  He  may  not 
succeed;  but  it  is  the  diagnosis  and  the  attempt  at 
treatment,  not  its  success,  that  constitute  him  what 
he  is. 

Problem  Third.     The  reading  done  through  the  li- 


THREE    KINDS    OF    LIBRARIANS       251 

brary  is  trivial  and  inconsequential.  The  fiction 
drawn  is  of  low  order,  and  there  is  little  else  read. 
The  way  in  which  this  will  affect  the  three  types  of 
librarian  may  be  predicted  at  once.  The  librarian  of 
the  day-bef ore-yesterday  heeds  it  not ;  the  librarian  of 
yesterday  heeds  and  perhaps  worries,  but  does  noth- 
ing. The  librarian  of  to-day  finds  out  the  trouble  and 
then  tries  to  remedy  it. 

And  so  it  goes :  you  may  construct  other  problems 
for  yourselves  and  imagine  their  solution,  or  lack  of 
solution. 

Now,  it  is  obvious  that  thee  arc  great  and  evident 
objections  to  being  a  librarian  of  to-day  and  corre- 
sponding advantages  in  being  one  of  the  other  kinds. 
In  the  first  place  the  to-day  variety  of  librarianship 
involves  brainwork  and  it  is  always  difficult  to  use 
one's  brain — we  saw  that  in  the  case  of  the  street- 
cleaner.  Then  this  kind  of  librarian  must  be  always 
looking  for  trouble.  Instead  of  congratulating  him- 
self that  all  is  going  smoothly,  he  must  set  out  with 
the  premise  that  all  cannot  be  going  smoothly.  There 
must  be  some  way  in  which  his  books  can  be  made  to 
serve  more  people  and  serve  them  better;  and  it  is  his 
business  to  find  out  that  way.  Then  the  to-day  libra- 
rian must  use  his  statistics.  The  librarian  of  the  day 
before  yesterday  probably  takes  none  at  all.  The  li- 
brarian of  yesterday  collects  them  with  diligence,  but 
regards  any  suggestion  that  they  might  be  of  use 
somewhat  as  the  lazy  wood-sawyer  did  the  advice  that 
he  should  sharpen  his  saw.  "I  should  think  I  had  a 
big  enough  job  to  cut  up  all  this  wood,"  he  replied 
petulantly,  "without  stopping  to  sharpen  saws."  The 
librarian  of  yesterday  has  trouble  enough  in  collecting 
and  tabulating  his  statistics  without  stopping  to  use 
them — to  make  any  deductions  from  them — to  learn 
where  the  library  machine  is  failing  and  where  he 


-    -  LIBKAKY     ESSAYS 

should  use  the  wrench  or  the  oil  can.  All  these  things 
and  man}"  others  make  it  easier  for  the  overworked 
librarian  to  drop  back  into  yesterday,  or  the  day  be- 
fore. It  should  be  borne  in  mind,  however,  that  the 
difference  between  the  three  types  of  librarian  is  not 
so  much  difference  in  the  amount  of  work  done  as  it 
is  in  attitude  of  mind.  The  librarian  of  to-day  does 
not  necessarily  expend  more  energy  than  the  librarian 
of  day  before  yesterday — but  it  is  expended  in  a  dif- 
ferent direction  and  with  a  different  object.  It  is  to 
be  feared  that  some  librarians  of  small  libraries  al- 
low themselves  to  become  discouraged  after  reading 
of  the  great  things  that  have  been  accomplished  by 
large  institutions  with  plenty  of  money  to  spend — the 
circulation  of  millions  of  books  yearly,  the  purchase 
of  additions  by  the  tens  of  thousands,  the  provision 
of  exhibitions  for  the  children,  the  story-telling  by 
professionals,  the  huge  collections  on  special  subjects, 
technology,  art  or  history.  It  almost  seems  as  if  suc- 
cess were  simply  a  matter  of  spending  and  as  if  with- 
out money  to  spend,  failure  should  be  expected  as  a 
matter  of  course. 

On  the  contrary,  all  that  the  money  does  is  to  make 
possible  success  on  a  large  and  sensational  scale — 
without  the  proper  spirit  and  the  proper  workers  the 
result  might  be  failure  on  a  scale  quite  as  sensational. 
And  an  enthusiastic  spirit,  a  high  aim  and  unflagging 
energy — these  are  tilings  that  no  money  can  buy  and 
that  will  bring  success  on  the  small  scale  as  on  the 
large  one. 

We  are  fortunate — we  who  have  charge  of  libra- 
ries and  are  trying  to  do  something  worth  while  with 
them— that  there  is  perhaps  less  of  the  spirit  of  pure 
commercialism  among  us  than  among  some  other- 
classes  of  workers.  For  this,  in  part,  wehave  to  thank 
our  inadequate  salaries.    Persons  who  desire  to  work 


THREE    KINDS    OF    LIBRARIANS       253 

simply  for  the  material  reward  will  select  some  other 
field.  We  are  glad  to  get  our  reward — we  certainly 
earn  it;  but  I  venture  to  say  that  in  the  case  of  most 
of  us  there  is  also  something  in  the  work  that  appeals 
to  us.  And  that  something  is  the  thing  that,  pushed 
to  its  furthest  extent,  will  bring  the  dawn  of  to-day 
into  the  most  backward  library.  It  is  not  a  very  in- 
spiring thing  simply  to  sit  down  and  watch  a  pile  of 
books — hardly  more  so,  I  should  think,  than  to  take 
care  of  a  pile  of  bricks  or  a  load  of  turnips.  Interest, 
enthusiasm,  inspiration,  come  with  realization  of  the 
t'aet  that  every  one  of  those  hooks  has  a  mission  and 
that  it  is  the  librarian's  business  to  find  what  it  is 
and  to  see  that  it  is  performed.  In  the  large,  wealthy 
institution  this  duty  may  be  accompanied  by  the  ex- 
penditure of  vast  sums,  and  may  he  performed  with 
the  aid  of  things  that  only  large  sums  of  money  can 
buy;  in  the  small  library  there  may  he  but  a  single 
librarian  and  only  a  few  dollars  to  spend.  But,  just 
as  in  the  case  of  a  city  librarian  with  an  ample  salary, 
she  has  open  to  her  the  choice  of  those  three  types  of 
lihrarianship— the  day  before  yesterday,  yesterday 
and  to-day. 

And  how  about  the  librarian  of  to-morrow?  Per- 
haps it  may  he  as  well  to  leave  him  or  her  for  future 
consideration;  but  I  cannot  help  saying  just  a  word. 
May  it  not  be  that  in  the  days  to  come  we  shall  have 
enough  civic  pride  to  do  whatever  we  may  find  to  do 
in  our  libraries  or  anywhere  else,  not  with  our  eves 
fixed  only  upon  the  work  itself,  important  as  that  may 
be,  but  with  the  broader  viewpoint  of  its  effect  upon 
the  whole  community?  May  it  not  be  that,  this  libra- 
rian of  to-morrow  will  ask  not,  "Will  it  raise  my  cir- 
culation?" or  even  "Will  it  improve  the  quality  of  my 
reading?"  but  "Will  it  better  the  reading  that  is  done 
in  this  community?"    That  librarian  will  not  rejoice 


154  LIBRARY     ESSAYS 

that  his  library  circulation  of  good  novels  has  dropped, 
when  he  realizes  that  twice  as  many  bad  novels  are 
bought  and  read  outside.  He  will  be  pleased  that  the 
children  in  his  library  have  learned  to  wash  their 
hands,  but  chiefly  because  he  hopes  that  what  they 
have  learned  may  react  upon  the  physical  cleanliness 
— and  perhaps  on  the  moral  cleanliness,  too — of  the 
community.  Much  as  he  will  love  the  library,  he  will 
love  it  as  an  agency  for  the  improvement  of  the  com- 
munity in  which  he  lives  and  works,  and  he  will  do 
nothing  for  its  aggrandizement,  expansion  or  improve- 
ment that  involves  a  change  of  the  community  in  the 
opposite  direction.  We  shall  not  see  one  library  re- 
joicing because  it  has  enticed  away  the  users  of  some 
other  library ;  we  may  even  see  a  library  rejoicing  that 
it  has  lost  its  readers  in  Polish  history,  we  will  say, 
when  it  becomes  known  that  they  have  gone. to  another 
library  with  a  better  collection  in  that  subject. 

I  confess  that  I  am  looking  forward  to  the  day 
when  we  shall  take  this  view — when  the  adage  "Every 
man  for  himself  and  the  devil  take  the  hindmost"  may 
be  forgotten  among  institutions  in  the  same  town. 
The  policy  that  it  represents  makes  for  high  speed, 
perhaps,  but  not  for  solidarity.  In  a  fight  such  as  we 
are  waging  witli  the  forces  of  ignorance  and  indiffer- 
ence we  should  all  keep  shoulder  to  shoulder.  This 
is  why  the  librarian  should  say :  "I  am  a  citizen ;  noth- 
ing in  this  city  is  without  interest  to  me.''  That  is 
why  he  should  be  a  librarian  of  to-day,  and  why  he 
may  even  look  forward  with  hopefulness  to  the  dawn 
of  a  still  better  to-morrow. 


SCHOOL  LIBRARIES  AND  MENTAL  TRAINING 

Is  it  more  important  in  education  to  impart  defi- 
nite items  of  information  or  to  train  the  mind  so  that 
it  will  know  how  to  acquire  and  wish  to  acquire? 
To  ask  the  question  is  to  answer  it;  yet  we  do  not  al- 
ways live  up  to  our  lights. 

In  the  older  methods  the  teacher,  or  rather  his 
predecessors,  decided  what  it  would  be  necessary  for 
the  child  to  memorize,  and  then  he  was  made  to  mem- 
orize, while  still  without  appreciation  of  the  need  of 
so  doing.  We  are  perhaps  in  danger  today  of  going 
to  the  other  extreme.  We  require  so  little  memoriza- 
tion by  the  student  that  the  memory,  as  a  practical 
tool  of  everyday  life,  is  in  danger  of  falling  into  dis- 
use. It  is  surely  possible  for  us  to  exercise  our  pu- 
pils' memories,  to  develop  them,  and  to  control  them, 
without  giving  them  the  fatal  idea  that  memory  is  a 
substitute  for  thought,  or  that  the  assimilation  of 
others'  ideas,  perfect  though  it  may  be,  will  altogether 
take  the  place  of  the  development  of  one's  own. 
There  are  still  things  that  one  must  learn  by  heart, 
but  since  they  must  be  retained  below  the  threshold 
of  consciousness,  it  is  well  that  if  possible  they  should 
also  be  acquired  below  that  threshold.  The  prob- 
lem of  consciously  learning  a  quantity  of  items  of 
any  kind  and  then  relegating  them  to  one's  subcon- 
sciousness in  such  a  way  that  they  will  be  available 
at  any  given  time  is  not,  of  course,  impossible.  Most 
of  us  have  at  our  disposal  many  facts  that  we  have 
learned  in  this  way;  but  I  venture  to  assert  that  most 
of  us  have  lost  a  large  proportion  of  what  we  thus 


256  LIBRARY     ESSAYS 

acquired.  Now  a  man  never  learns  by  rote  the  names 
of  his  relations,  the  positions  of  the  rooms  in  his 
house,  the  names  of  the  streets  in  his  town.  He  has 
acquired  them  subconsciously  as  he  needs  them. 
When  the  human  mind  becomes  convinced  of  the  need 
of  information  of  this  kind  "in  its  business,"  the  ac- 
quiring comes  as  a  matter  of  course.  In  a  language, 
the  paradigms  may  be  learned  unconsciously  when 
the  pupil  sees  that  they  are  necessary  in  order  to  un- 
derstand an  interesting  passage;  the  multiplication 
table  and  tables  of  weights  and  measures  require  no 
conscious  memorization;  or  at  least  such  memoriza- 
tion may  be  undertaken  voluntarily  as  a  recognized 
means  to  a  desired  end.  I  say  these  things  may  be 
done;  I  am  sure  that  they  are  in  many  schools;  I  am 
equally  sure  that  they  were  unheard  of  in  my  own 
boyhood;  that  is,  as  recognized  methods  in  teaching. 
Of  course,  in  spite  of  schools  and  teachers  and  meth- 
ods, a  vast  amount  of  information  and  training  has 
always  been  acquired  in  this  way.  I  do  not  remember 
ever  "learning  to  read"  as  a  set  task.  I  am  sure  that 
none  of  my  children  ever  did  so.  We  recognized  the 
desirability  of  knowing  how.  We  wanted  to  learn, 
and  so  we  learned;  that  is  all.  Of  course  our  teach- 
ers and  parents  and  friends  helped  us  along. 

Is  not  this  what  the  school  is  for — to  make  the 
pupil  anxious  to  learn  and  then  to  help  him?  When 
all  schools  are  conducted  on  this  principle,  we  shall 
be  very  happy,  but  apparently  it  is  not  so  simple  as 
it  would  appear. 

What  we  should  try  to  approximate,  at  all  events, 
is  an  emancipation  from  the  thraldom  of  unwilling- 
ness on  the  part  of  the  pupil — to  bring  it  about  that 
he  shall  desire  to  learn  and  will  take  what  measures 
he  can  to  do  so,  gladly  availing  himself  of  what  help 
we  can  offer  him. 


SCHOOL   LIBKARJ.  257 

I  have  said  that  what  we  need  is  to  stimulate  the 
pupil's  desire  and  then  to  satisfy  it.  I  have  known 
teachers  who  were  competent  to  do  both — who  could 
take  an  ignorant,  unwilling  pupil  and  make  of  him  an 
enthusiast,  thirsting  for  knowledge,  in  a  few  weeks. 
We  all  know  of  the  idea]  university  whose  faculty 
consisted  of  Mark  Hopkins  on  one  end  of  a  log.  I  am 
sorry  the  creator  of  that  epigram  put  his  teacher  on 
a  log.  There  are  plenty  of  logs,  and,  from  this  fact, 
too  many  persons,  1  am  afraid,  have  leaped  to  the  eon- 
elusion  that  there  are  also  plenty  of  Mark  Hopkinses. 
I  fear  that  one  trouble  with  educators  is  that,  hitch- 
ing their  wagons  to  stars,  they  have  assumed  the  pos- 
sibility that  terrestrial  luminaries  also  are  able  to 
raise  us  to  the  skies.  If  we  had  a  million  Mark  Hop- 
kinses and  a  million  boys  for  them  to  educate,  we 
should  need  only  a  sufficient  quantity  of  logs;  we 
should  be  forever  absolved  from  planning  school- 
houses  and  making  out  schedules,  from  writing  text- 
books and  establishing  libraries.  As  it  is,  we  must 
do  all  these  things.  We  must  adopt  any  and  all  de- 
vices to  arouse  and  hold  the  pupil's  interest,  and  we 
must  similarly  seek  out  and  use  all  kinds  of  machin- 
ery to  satisfy  that  interest  when  onee  aroused.  Of 
these  devices  and  machines,  the  individual  teacher. 
with  or  without  his  textbooks,  lectures,  recitations, 
laboratory  work,  and  formal  courses,  is  only  one,  and 
perhaps  in  some  cases  not  the  one  to  be  preferred  as 
the  primary  agent.  Among  such  devices  I  believe 
that  a  collection  of  books,  properly  selected,  disposed, 
and  used  can  be  made  to  play  a  very  important  part, 
both  in  arousing  interest  in  a  subject  and  in  satisfy- 
ing it — in  other  words,  in  teaching  it  properly. 

And  first  let  us  see  what  it  may  do  to  stimulate 
a  general  interest  in  knowledge.  Of  late  I  have  seen 
cropping  out  here  and  there  what  seems  to  me  a  ped- 


258  LIBRARY     ESSAYS 

agogical  heresy — the  thesis  that  no  kind  of  training 
is  of  value  in  fitting  the  pupil  for  anything  but  the 
definite  object  that  it  has  in  view.  We  can,  according 
to  this  view,  teach  a  boy  to  argue  about  triangles,  but 
this  will  not  help  him  in  a  legal  or  business  discus- 
sion. We  may  teach  him  to  solve  equations,  and  he 
will  then  be  an  equation-solver — nothing  else.  We 
may  teach  him  to  read  Greek  and  he  will  then  be  some 
sort  of  a  Greek  scholar,  but  his  reaction  to  other  at- 
tempts to  teach  him  will  not  be  affected.  Anything 
like  a  general  training  is  a  contradiction  in  terms. 
If  this  is  true,  a  great  part  of  what  I  am  saying  is 
foolish,  but  I  do  not  believe  it.  Doubtless  we  have 
exaggerated  the  effect  of  certain  kinds  of  training. 
The  old  college  graduate  who,  having  been  through 
four  years  of  Latin,  Greek,  and  mathematics,  con- 
sidered himself  aide  with  slight  additional  training, 
to  undertake  to  practice  law  or  medicine  or  manage 
a  parish,  was  probably  too  sanguine.  Yet  I  refuse 
to  believe  that  a  man's  brain  is  so  shut  off  in  knowl- 
edge-tight compartments  that  one  may  exercise  one 
part  of  it  without  the  slightest  effect  on  the  others.  I 
cannot  now  write  with  my  toes,  but  I  am  sure  that 
I  could  learn  to  do  so  much  more  quickly  because  I 
know  how  to  use  my  fingers  for  the  purpose. 

And  it  is  indubitable,  I  think,  that  the  best  gener- 
al preparation  for  mental  activity  of  whatever  kind 
is  contact  with  the  minds  of  others — early,  late,  and 
often.  It  tones  up  all  one's  reactions — makes  him 
mentally  stronger,  quicker,  and  more  accurate.  Some 
children  get  this  at  home,  where  there  is  a  numerous 
family  of  persons  who  are  both  thoughtful  and  men- 
tally alert.  Some  meet  at  home,  besides  members  of 
the  family,  visitors  who  add  to  the  variety  of  their 
contacts.  Few  get  it  in  school,  with  much  variety. 
And  it  is  futile  to  expect  most  of  our  children  to  get 
it  anywhere  directly  from  persons.     This  being  the 


school   LIBRARIES 

case,  it  is  wonderfully  fortunate  that  we  have  bo  many 
of  the  recorded  souls  of  human  beings  between  the 

covers  <»f  hooks.  With  them  mental  contacts  may  be 
numerous,  wide,  and  easy.  To  interest  a  man  in  a 
stretch  of  country  take  him  up  to  a  height  whence  he 
may  overlook  it.  There  is  a  patch  of  woods,  there  h 
hill,  there  is  a  winding  stream.  He  will  see  in  im- 
agination the  wild  flowers  under  the  trees,  the  wind 
swept  rocks  behind  the  hill,  the  trout  in  the  stream. 
He  will  wonder,  too,  what  unimagined  things  there 
may  be  and  he  will  long  to  find  out.  To  interest  a 
pupil  in  a  subject  turn  him  loose  in  a  room  contain- 
ing a  hundred  hooks  about  it.  lie  will  browse  about, 
finding  a  dozen  i  hings  (hat  he  understands  and  a  hun- 
dred that  he  does  not.  lie  will  get  such  a  bird's-eye 
view  that  his  stimulated  imagination  will  long  for 
closer  acquaintance.  And  if  you  want  to  interest 
him  in  the  world  of  ideas  in  general,  turn  him  loose 
in  a  genera]  library.  The  things  that  he  will  get  are 
not  to  be  ascertained  by  an  examination.  They  are 
intangible,  hut  their  results  are  not. 

In  an  illuminating  article  on  the  events  just  pre- 
ceding the  present  European  war,  Professor  Munroe 
Smith  holds  that  it  was  precipitated  chiefly  by  bring- 
ing to  the  front  at  every  step  military  rather  than 
diplomatic  considerations.  The  trouble  with  military 
men,  he  says,  is  that  they,  take  no  account  of  "im- 
ponderables"— by  which  he  means  public  opinion,  na- 
tional feeling,  injured  pride,  joy,  grief— all  those 
things,  intellectual  and  emotional,  thai  cannot  beex- 
pressed  in  terms  of  men,  guns,  supplies,  and  military 
position.  I  have  been  wondering  whether  some  other 
technically  trained  persons — educators,  for  instance. 
do  not  tend  toward  a  similar  neglect  of  imponder- 
ables, measuring  educational  values  solely  in  terms 
of  hours,  and  units,  and  tin1  passing  of  examinations 
It  is  a  fault  common  to  all  highly  trained  specialists 


260  LIBRARY     ESSAYS 

The  Scripture  has  a  phrase  for  it,  as  for  most  things 
— "ye  neglect  the  weightier  matters  of  the  law — judg- 
ment and  faith."  These,  you  will  note,  are  to  be 
classed  with  Professor  Munroe  Smith's  "imponder- 
ables," whereas  mint,  anise,  and  cummin  are  commer- 
cial products. 

At  least  one  noted  educator,  William  James,  did 
not  make  this  error,  for  he  bids  us  note  that  the  emo- 
tional "imponderable" — though  he  does  not  use  this 
word — possesses  the  priceless  property  of  unlocking 
within  us  unsuspected  stores  of  energy  and  placing 
them  at  our  disposal.  "I  thank  thee,  Roderick,  for 
the  word,"  says  Fitz-James  in  "The  Lady  of  the 
Lake"  :  "it  nerves  my  heart;  it  steels  my  sword."  One 
would  hardly  expect  to  find  educational  psychology 
in  Scott's  verse,  but  here  it  is.  The  word  that  Roder- 
ick Dhu  spoke  (I  forget  just  what  it  was,  but  I  think 
he  called  his  rival  a  had  name)  unlocked  in  Fitz- 
James  an  unexpected  store  of  reserve  energy,  and 
the  result,  as  I  recall  it,  was  quite  unfortunate  from 
the  Gaelic  point  of  view.  We  cannot  afford  to  neg- 
lect the  imponderables;  and  it  is  their  presence  and 
their  influence  that  are  fostered  by  a  collection  of 
books.  If  you  will  add  together  the  weight  of  leather, 
paper,  glue,  thread,  and  ink  in  a  book  you  will  get 
the  whole  weight  of  the  volume.  There  is  naught 
ponderable  left ;  and  yet  what  is  left  is  all  that  makes 
the  thing  a  book — all  that  has  power  to  influence  the 
lives  and  souls  of  men — the  imponderable  part,  fit  for 
the  unlocking  of  energies. 

I  would  not  have  you  think,  although  I  believe 
this  to  be  at  bottom  a  matter  of  principles,  that  it  is 
not  possible  to  apply  these  principles  very  directly 
and  concretely  in  the  daily  practice  of  an  education- 
al institution.  I  desire  to  call  your  attention  for  a 
moment  to  the  testimony  of  one  who  has  had  great 
experience  and  practice  in  the  administration  of  a 


SCHOOL   LIBEAKIES 

collection  of  books  in  such  an  institution  and  in  their 
use  for  the  purposes  already  outlined — Mr.  Frederick 
C.  Hicks,  assistant  librarian  of  Columbia  University, 
New  York  City,  from  whose  recent  review  article  on 
this  subject  1  propose  to  quote  a  few  paragraphs. 
Mr.  Hicks  is  writing  primarily  of  college  instruction, 
but,  as  he  notes  in  the  first  paragraph  that  I  shall 
quote,  what  he  says  applies  with  equal  cogency  to  the 
secondary  school.     He  writes: 

The  general  tendency  in  all  instruction  today,  including  even  that 
in  preparatory  and  high  schools,  is  from  what  may  be  called  the 
few-book  method  to  the  many-book  method— a  recognition  of  the 
power  of  the  printed  page  ior  which  librarians  have  always  stood 
sponsor.  The  lecture,  note-taking,  text-book  and  quiz  method  of 
instruction  is  last  passing  away  in  undergraduate  as  well  . 
graduate  study.  Textbooks  are  still  in  use  in  undergraduate  and 
Master  of  Arts  courses,  but  they  have  been  relegated  to  a  subordi- 
nate position.  Emphasis  is  laid  on  work  done  and  the  assimila- 
tion of  ideas  gathered  from  many  sources  rather  than  upon 
memorizing  the  treatise  of  one  author.  -Necessarily,  references  arc 
chiefly  to  easily  accessible  works  of  secondary  authority,  and  read- 
ing instead  of  research  is  the  objecti\e. 

From   the   library  point  of   view,   the  growth   of   the   labor.  • 
or   case  method  of   instruction   appears   to   be  an   independent  phe- 
nomenon.    It  should  be  noticed,  however,  that  coincident  with  it  is 
the  general  tendency  to  adopt  a  policy  of  teaching  each  subject  with 
emphasis  on  its  relations  to  other  subjects. 

Most  universities  now  give  courses  for  which  no  textbook  is 
available.  For  instance,  Professor  Frederick  J.  Turner,  of  Har- 
vard University,  announces  in  a  syllabus  of  116  pages  that  tha 
no  textbook  suitable  for  use  in  his  course  on  the  History  of  the 
West  in  the  United  States.  He  thereupon  gives  citations  to  about 
2,100  separate  readings  contained  in  1,300  volumes,  and  says  that 
his  course  requires  not  less  than  120  pages  of  reading  per  week  in 
these  books.  Professor  James  Harvey  Robinson's  course  in  Colum- 
bia University  on  the  History  of  the  Intellectual  Class  in  Western 
Europe  has  no  textbook,  and  the  reading  for  a  class  of  15b  stu- 
dents is  indicated  in  a  pamphlet  of  53  pages,  containing  references 
to  301  books.  Illustrations  could  be  taken  from  almost  any  sub- 
ject in  the  university  curriculum. 

This  is  essentially  a   teacher's  view.      Listen   now 

to  that  of  a  public  librarian,  Mr.  John  Cotton  Dana. 

of  Newark,   New  Jersey,      lie  says: 

In   our   high   schools   we   spend    literally    millions   of    dollars    to 
equip    laboratories,    kitchens,    carpenter    shops,    machine    shops,    and 
what  not,  to  be  used  by  a  small  part  of  the  pupils  for  a  smalt  part 
of  the  short  school  day.    This  is  partly  because  so  to  do  is  the  fash: 
the  hour,  partly  also  because  the  products  of  work  in  th.»-,-  shops, 


262  LIBRARY     ESSAYS 

kitchens,  and  laboratories  can  be  seen,  touched,  and  handled,  are 
real  things  even  to  the  most  unintelligent. 

For  books,  the  essential  tools  of  every  form  of  acquisition,  we 
spend,  outside  of  textbooks,  a  few  paltry  thousands.  The  things  a 
child  makes  we  can  see,  and  we  are  impressed  by  them;  the  know- 
ledge he  gains,  the  power  of  thought  he  acquires — these  cannot  be 
made  visible  and  are  not  appreciated  by  the  ignorant ;  they  can  only 
be  certified  to  by  the  teacher  and  demonstrated  by  the  student's 
words  and  deeds  as  he  goes  through  life. 

Mastery  of  print  is  mastery  of  world-knowledge.  Our  young 
people  do"  not  have  it.  Surely  they  should  be  led  to  acquire  it, 
and  where  better  than  in  the  high  schools?  To  aid  them  in  this 
acquisition  the  high  schools  should  have  ample  collections  of  books, 
and  these  collections  of  books  should  become  active  teaching  or- 
ganisms through  the  ministrations  of  competent  librarians. 

Of  all  teaching  laboratories,  there  is  one  which  is  plainly  of 
supreme  importance — that  of  books. 

I  trust  that  you  are  with  ine  so  far ;  for  I  am  about 
to  make  a  further  advance  that  experience  teaches  me 
is  very  difficult,  except  for  librarians.  I  am  going  to 
urge  that  your  collection  of  books,  when  you  have 
made  it,  be  put  in  charge  of  one  who  has  studied  the 
methods  of  making  the  contents  of  books  available  to 
the  reader — their  shelving,  physical  preparation, 
classification,  cataloguing;  the  ways  in  which  to  fit 
them  to  their  users,  to  record  their  use,  and  to  pre- 
vent their  abuse.     This  means  a  trained  librarian. 

In  all  departments  where  expert  knowledge  and 
skill  are  necessary  it  is  difficult  to  explain  to  a  non- 
expert the  reasons  for  this  necessity  and  exactly  in 
what  the  expert  knowledge  consists.  We  are  so  ac- 
cutomed  to  accept  the  fact  in  certain  departments 
that  it  passes  there  without  question.  Unfortunately 
that  is  not  the  case  with  the  selection  and  administra- 
tion of  a  library.  Most  persons  understand  quite 
well  that  special  training  is  necessary  before  one  can 
practice  law,  or  medicine,  or  engineering.  No  one 
would  undertake  to  drive  a  motor  car  or  even  ride  a 
bicycle  without  some  previous  experience;  but  it  is 
quite  usual  to  believe  that  a  collection  of  books  may 
be  administered  and  its  use  controlled  by  totally  un- 
trained and  inexperienced  persons — a  retired  clergy- 


SCHOOL   LIBRABIE8  203 

man,  a  broken-down  clerk,  a  janitor,  perhaps.  I  0HC6 
asked  a  young  woman  who  came  for  advice  about  tak- 
ing up  library  work  what  had  inclined  her  toward 
that  particular  occupation.  She  was  quite  frank  with 
me;  she  said:  "Why,  my  father  and  mother  didn't 
think  I  was  good  for  anything  else."  This  estimate 
of  the  library  is  by  no  means  confined  to  the  parents 
of  WOUld-be  library  workers.  And  even  where  it  is 
recognized  that  some  training  and  experience  are  ne- 
cessary in  administering  a  large  public  institution, 
there  is  a  Lingering  feeling  that  a  comparatively  small 
collection,  like  that  in  a  school,  needs  no  expert  su- 
pervision. The  fact  that  there  are  in  a  school  plenty 
of  experts  in  other  lines  seems  to  have  been  not  with- 
out its  effect  on  this  attitude.  "Why,  Professor  Smith 
is  one  of  the  best  chemists  in  the  state;  Miss  .Tom's 
is  an  acknowledged  authority  on  oriental  history;  do 
you  mean  to  tell  me  that  either  of  them  would  not 
make  a  perfectly  satisfactory  librarian?"  Which  is 
something  like  saying,  "Mr.  Robinson  is  our  foremost 
banker;  should  he  not  be  aide  to  superintend  the  dye- 
ing department  in  a  textile  mill?"  Or,  "Rev.  Mr. 
Jenkins  is  our  most  eloquent  pulpit  orator;  he  can 
surely  run  the  2:15  express!" 

Are  my  metaphors  too  violent?  I  think  not.  We 
are  dealing  here  with  imponderables,  as  I  have  said, 
but  the  most  imponderable  thing  of  all,  and  the  most 
potent,  is  the  human  mind.  To  wield,  concentrate, 
and  control  our  battery  of  energies  we  want  a  corre- 
lated energy — one  whose  relations  to  them  all  are 
close  and  one  who  knows  how  to  pull  all  the  throttles, 
turn  all  the  valves,  and  operate  all  the  mechanism 
that  brings  them  into  play.  It  takes  two  years  of 
hard  work,  nowadays,  for  a  college  graduate  to  get 
through  a  library  school,  and  it  should  not  be  neces- 
sarv  to  argue  that  during  these  two  Fears  he  is  work- 


264  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

ing  hard  on  essentials  and  is  assimilating  material 
that  the  untrained  man  however  able,  cannot  possibly 
acquire  in  a  few  month's  casual  association  with  a  li- 
brary or  from  mere  association  with  books,  no  mat- 
ter how  long  or  how  intimate.  You  will  pardon  me, 
1  am  sure,  some  further  quotation  from  Mr.  Hicks's 
illuminating  article.  After  calling  our  attention  to 
the  fact  that  the  effort  to  meet  changing  conditions  in 
instruction  is  purely  technical,  he  goes  on : 

The  librarian  stands  in  the  position  of  an  engineer  to  whom  is 
presented  a  task  which  by  the  methods  of  his  profession  he  must 
perform.  Numerical  growth,  expansion,  addition  of  new  schools 
and  new  subjects,  and  the  introduction  of  the  laboratory  method 
by  which  books  are  made  actual  tools  for  use,  all  mean  to  the  li- 
brarian more  books,  larger  reading-rooms  and  more  of  them,  a 
large  staff  specialized  and  grouped  into  departments,  the  super- 
vision of  a  complicated  system,  and  capable  business  administration. 
These  are  all  technical  matters  and  are  of  sufficient  magnitude  to 
require  all  of  the  time  and  strength  of  those  to  whom  they  are 
entrusted.  .  .  . 

In  a  reference  library,  open  shelves,  whether  in  department  li- 
braries or  in  the  general  library,  require  much  high-grade  library 
service.  The  reference  librarian  becomes  a  direct  teacher  in  the 
use  of  books  and  gives  constant  assistance  not  merely  in  finding 
separate  books  but  in  dealing  with  the  whole  literature  of  a 
subject.  .  .  . 

The  whole  development  from  the  few-book  method  to  the  many- 
book  method  presupposes  a  system  of  reserve  books.  By  this  ex- 
pression is  meant  the  placing  of  a  collection  of  books  behind  an  en- 
closure of  some  kind  from  which  they  are  given  out  by  a  library 
assistant  for  use  in  the  room.  The  reserve  collections,  continually 
changing  in  accordance  with  the  directions  of  instructors,  are  in 
reality  composite  textbooks.  .   .  . 

The  mere  clerical  work  of  maintaining  an  efficient  reserve  sys- 
tem is  large,  its  success  being  dependent  upon  intelligent  co-opera- 
tion between  the  teaching  faculty  and  the  library,  but  it  involves 
also  a  technical  problem  to  be  solved  by  the  librarian.  What  rela- 
tion does  the  number  of  copies  of  a  given  reserve  book  bear  to  its 
use?  To  put  the  question  concretely,  how  many  copies  of  a  book 
are  required  to  supply  a  class  of  200  students,  all  of  whom  must 
read  thirty  pages  of  the  book  within  two  weeks? 

I  like  so  much  one  of  Mr.  Hicks's  expressions  that 
I  desire  to  emphasize  it  at  the  close  of  what  I  am  say- 
ing. A  library,  used  for  teaching  purposes  in  a 
school,  is  indeed,  "a  composite  textbook."  It  insures 
contact  with  a  composite  instead   of   a   single   mind. 


B<  BOOL    LIBRARIES      »  265 

The  old  idea  was  that  contact  of  this  kind  always    r< 

suited  in  ronfusion     in  mental  Instability.  There  was 

a  time  when  the  effort  was  to  protect  the  mind 
through  life  from  any  such  unbalancing  contact.  The 
individual  was  protected  from  familiarity  with  more 
than  oih'  set  of  opinions  -religious,  political,  social, 
philosophical,  scientific.  He  was  taught  facts  as  facts 
and  no  emphasis  was  placed  on  the  more  important 
fact  that  there  are  degrees  of  certainty  and  points  of 
view.  The  next  step  was  to  give  the  individual  a  []■<■<■ 
head  after  i  he  formal  processes  of  education  had  ter- 
minated.    Getting  out  of  college  was  like  escaping 

from  a  box,  where  one  had  been  shut  up  with  Pres- 
byterians  and  Free  Traders  and  Catastrophists  and 
Hegelians— or  their  opposites,  for  the  contents  of  all 
the  boxes  were  not  alike.  Now,  we  set  the  hoy  free 
when  he  enters  college  and  we  are  beginning  to  give 
him  a  little  fresh  air  in  the  high  school.  Why  not 
go  hack  to  the  beginning?  Why  not.  at  any  rate, 
avoid  the  implication  that  there  iv  the  same  back- 
ing behind  all  that  we  teach  or  tell?  Some  teachers, 
and  some  parents,  have  made  this  plan  succeed.  One 
of  them  is  Mr.  II.  R.  Walmsley.  who  writes  in  the 
Volta  Review  (Washington,  April,  1915),  on  "How 
I  Taught  My  Boy  the  Truth."     Says  he: 

I  pondered  over  these  things,  and  determined  that  I  would  never 
tell  a  falsehood  to  my  child;  that  1  would  tell  him  the  truth  upon 
every  subject,  and  that  I  would  not  evade  or  refuse  to  answer  anv 
question.  I  kept  my  resolution  and  have  obtained  most  excellent 
results.  The  child  doubted  nothing  I  told  him.  He  knew  that  as 
far  as  I  was  able  I  would  reply  truthfully  t< •  any  question  he  might 
care  to  ask.  In  answering  him  1  was  always  careful  to  qualify  my 
statements  thus:     "This  is  so,"  "I  believe  so,"  "It  is  believed  to 

"It  is  claimed  to  be, Hiose   who   should   know    say,"   etc     So  he 

knew  the  basis  from  which  I  spoke.  Throughout  his  life,  when 
he  was  told  anything  that  looked  doubtful,  he  would  say,  "I  will 
ask  father." 

This  plan  is  practicable  from  the  child's  earliest 
years.  As  soon  as  he  learns  to  read  we  may  begin  t<> 
supplement  it  by  reference    to   original    documents. 


it,.;  LIBRARY     ESSAYS 

This  means  a  library  at  the  very  beginning,  and  at 
high  school  age  it  means  a  large  library.  It  need  not 
all  be  in  the  school.  In  the  smallest  towns  there  are 
now  respectable  public  collections;  the  school  may 
routine  itself  to  the  subjects  in  its  own  curriculum. 
But  whatever  we  do,  let  us  not  teach  the  child,  with 
the  implication  of  equal  authority,  that  twice  two  is 
is  four,  that  material  bodies  are  composed  of  mole- 
cules, and  that  the  Tories  in  the  Revolution  were  all 
bad.  Tell  him  that  there  are  other  aspects,  if  they  ex- 
ist, and  as  soon  as  lie  is  able  let  him  examine  those 
aspects.  He  will  be  able  far  sooner  than  some  of  us 
are  willing  to  admit. 

We  librarians  feel  someAvhat  strongly  on  this  mat- 
ter because  our  own  institutions  possess  by  their  very 
nature  that  form  of  neutrality  that  exposes  both 
sides  without  advocating  either.  It  seems  to  be  as- 
sumed by  some  persons  that  neutrality  means  igno- 
rance. Of  course,  ignorance  is  one  method  of  insuring 
it.  If  a  fairy  story  opens  with  the  announcement  that 
the  King  of  Nowaria  is  at  war  with  the  Prince  of 
Snmboddia,  you  cannot  take  sides  until  you  know 
something  about  the  quarrel.  The  trouble  is  that  we 
do  not  live  in  fairyland.  In  my  home  city  the  school 
authorities  have  been  trying  to  cultivate  this  kind  of 
neutrality  by  cautioning  principals  not  to  discuss  the 
European  war  with  their  pupils.  What  is  the  result? 
One  of  my  branch  librarians  says  in  a  recent  report: 
"I  have  been  greatly  interested  by  the  fact  that  the 
high-school  boys  and  girls  never  ask  for  anything 
about  the  war.  Not  once  during  the  winter  have  I 
seen  in  one  of  them  a  spark  of  interest  in  the  subject. 
It  seems  so  strange  that  it  should  be  necessary  to  keep 
them  officially  ignorant  of  this  great  war  because  the 
grandfather  of  one  spoke  French  and  of  another,  Ger- 
man."     With  this  I  thoroughly  agree.     I  am  not  sure 


SCHOOL     LIBRARIES  267 

that  I  do  not  prefer  a  thorough  and  bigoted  partisan- 
ship to  this  neutrality  <»f  ignorance.  Better  than  both 
is  the  opportunity  for  free  investigation  with  en- 
lightened guidance.  The  public  library  offers  the  op- 
portunity for  the  fullest  and  freest  contact  with  the 
minds  of  the  world.  We  try  to  give  guidance,  also,  as 
we  can;  l>nt  we  have  not  the  opportunities  of  you 
teachers.  Guidance  is  your  business  and  your  high 
privilege;  and  if  some  of  you  have  in  the  past  guided 
as  the  jailer  guides  his  prisoners — for  a  walk  around 
the  prison  yard  with  ball  and  chain — let  us  be  thank- 
ful  that    this   oppressive   view   is  giving  place   to  the 

freer  idea  of  a  guide  as  a  counselor  and  friend.  Such 
guidance  means  intellectual  freedom.  Freedom 
means  choice,  and  choice  implies  a  collection  from 
which  to  choose.  This  means  a  library  and  the  school 
library  is  thus  an  indispensable  tool  in  the  hands  of 
those  teachers  to  whom  education  signifies  neutral 
training,  the  arousing  of  neutral  energies,  and  a  con- 
trol of  the  imponderables  of  life — those  things  with- 
out physical  weight  which  yet  count  more  in  the  end 
than  all  the  masses  with  which  molecular  physics  has 
to  deal. 


THE  LIBRARY  AND  THE  BUSINESS  MAN* 

The  electricians  bave  a  word  thai  has  always  in- 
terested me— the  word  and  tlie  thing  it  signifies.  It 
is  "hysteresis,"  and  it  means  that  quality  in  a  mass 
of  iron  thai  resists  magnetization,  so  that  if  the  mag- 
netizing force  is  a  moving  one  the  magnetism  always 
lags  a  little  behind  it.  We  see  this  quality  in  many 
other-  places  besides  magnetic  bodies  the  almost  uni- 
versal tendency  of  effects  to  lag  behind  their  causes. 
J  like  to  watch  it  in  the  popular  mind— the  failure  to 
"catch  on*'  quickly— the  appreciation  that  comes  just 
a  little  after  the  thing  to  he  appreciated.  Lag  every- 
where, in  apprehension,  in  knowledge,  in  the  realiza- 
tion of  a  situation.  Everywhere  hysteresis,  of 
course,  sometimes  the  lag  is  great  and  sometimes  it 
is  slight.  It  may  he  affected  by  physical  distance,  as 
when  the  European  thinks  that  Indians  camp  in  the 
suburbs  of  Pittsburg  and  thai  the  citizens  of  [ndiana- 
polis  hunt  the  buffalo  of  an  evening;  or  it  may  he  a 
function  of  mental  distance,  as  when  the  \\';ill  Street 
financier  fondly  imagines  that  this  country  is  still 
populated  chiefly  by  lambs,  as  it  undoubtedly  was 
fifty  years  ago.  I  like  to  watch  it  as  it  affects  the  idea 
of  the  public  library  as  some  people  hold  it.  Now  of 
course,  without  progress,  change,  mol  ion  of  some  kind, 
there  could  he  no  lag.  In  a  permanent  magnet  there 
is  no  hysteresis.  If  the  Indians  and  the  buffalo  were 
still  with  us,  tlie  European  would  he  thinking  the 
truth.     If  we  had  not  learned  that  the  gold-brick  and 

the  green  goods  were  frauds,  \\  e  could  still  he  fleeced. 

And  if  libraries  were  still  what   they  were  titty  years 
•a  luncheon  address  to  tin    Advertising  Clul    <     St,    Louis. 


270  LIBRARY     ESSAYS 

ago,  there  would  be  no  lag  in  the  ideas  that  some  peo- 
ple hold  about  them.  Libraries  have  changed.  Some 
of  you  know  it  and  some  of  you  do  not.  Libraries 
have  changed  in  the  kind  of  printed  matter  that  they 
collect  and  preserve;  in  the  kind  of  people  to  whom 
they  make  their  appeal;  in  the  way  in  which  they  trj 
to  make  the  former  available  to  the  latter.  They  have 
utterly  changed  in  their  own  conception  of  their  status 
in  the  community,  of  what  they  owe  to  the  commun- 
ity and  how  they  ought  to  go  about  it,  to  pay  the  debt. 

The  old  library  was  first  and  foremost  a  collection 
of  material  for  scholars ;  the  new  is  for  the  busy  citi- 
zen, to  help  him  in  what  he  is  busy  about,  to  make  it 
possible  for  him  to  do  more  work  in  less  time.  It  has 
taken  some  time  for  the  library  to  see  itself  in  this 
light,  but  it  lias  taken  the  great  body  of  our  citizens 
still  longer  to  recognize  and  act  on  the  change — else  I 
should  not  be  talking  to  you  to-day  about  the  library 
and  the  business  man.  The  modern  library  is  con- 
cerned, much  more  hugely  than  the  old,  with  contem- 
porary relations,  with  what  is  happening  and  what  is 
just  going  to  happen.  It  sympathizes  with  the  men 
who  do  things.  It  tries  to  let  them  know  what  is  go- 
ing on  about  them,  and  to  assist  them  in  what  they  are 
attempting — whether  it  be  to  achieve  a  world-wide 
peace  or  to  devise  a  new  non-refillable  bottle. 

The  library  has  placed  itself  in  a  position  where 
it  can  do  this  better  than  any  other  institution,  for 
it  is  essentially  non-partisan.  Probably  it  is  our  only 
non-partisan  institution.  Mr.  Bryan's  impartial  gov- 
ernment newspaper  has  not  yet  printed  its  first  num- 
ber. The  school  must  take  sides,  for  its  deals  solely 
with  children.  The  library  alone  can  store  up  mate- 
rial on  all  sides  of  every  mooted  question  and  offer  it 
to  him  who  reads,  without  in  any  way  taking  sides 
itself.     It  may  run  the  risk  of  misconception.     We 


LIBRARY    AND   THE    BUSINESS    MAN   271 

had  a  bi^  exhibit  of  war  pictures  Last  year.  The  Paci- 
fists protested.  It  was  very  dreadful,  they  said,  I  i 
sec  a  library  encouraging  the  militaristic  spirit.  This 
year  we  have  a  peace  exhibit  prepared  by  tin-  Union 
Against  Militarism.  The  Preparedness  people  are 
horrified.  They  hate  to  sec  a  library  siding  with  those 
who  would  drag  our  country  in  tin-  dust  of  humilia- 
tion. The  trouble  with  all  these  good  people  is  just 
hysteresis  lag.  It  may  have  been  fifty  years  ago 
that  a  portrait  of  a  monarch  in  a  library  meant  that, 
tin-  institution  was  for  him,  body  and  soul.  Now  it 
means  simply  that  he  is  an  interesting  contemporary 
Display  of  ton  representing  Woodrow 

Wilson  doing  something  disgraceful  um,-s  not  imply 
on  our  part  detestation  of  the  president,  but  only  a 
willingness  to  let  the  public  sec  a  good  bit  of  draw- 
ing or  perhaps  to  show  them  how  some  part  of  the 
community  is  thinking  and  feeling.  It  is  all  a  part. 
of  our  efforts  at  up-to-dateness- -  our  struggles  to 
brush  <>(['  the  dnst  "and  sweep  away  the  cobwebs  of 
medievalism. 

As  an  incident  of  these  struggles,  we  have 
covered  the  existence  of  the  Business  -Man.  We  have 
tried  to  find  out  what  he  is  driving  at  and  to  help  a 
little — to  stock  the  kind  of  information  that  he  wants 
and  to  help  him  get  at  it.  An  obstacle  in  the  way 
has  been  the  fact  that  much  of  what  he  wants  is  i 
obtained  best  from  material  that  the  older  libraries 
knew  nothing  of  and  would  have  despised  had  they 
known  it — partly,  printed  matter  that  had  no  exis- 
tence in  those  days,  like  the  huge  trade  catalog  and 
the  informative  railway  folder;  partly  material  that 
was  ignored  because  it  had  no  connection  with 
scholarly  pursuits  time  tables,  statistical  schedules, 
directories,  lists  of  names  and  addresses,  commercial 
publications,    maps,    information  ling    trade- 


272  LIBKAKY     ESSAYS 

routes  and  conditions,     if  the  scholar  of  fifty  years 
ago  wanted  to  be  set  right  about  a  Greek  preposition 
or  to  find  the  color  of  Henry   YII's  hair,  he  knew 
where  to  go:  the  library  was  the  proper  and  inevitable 
place  for  such  data.    He  brushed  the  dust  from  a  pile 
of  hooks  and   proceeded  to  look  them  up.      i>ut  if  he 
wanted  to  know  the  quickest  way  to  ship  goods  to 
Colombo,  Ceylon,  or  the  comparative  exports  of  cereals 
from  Russia  during  the  last  decade,  or  the  design  of 
the  latest  machine  for  effecting  a  given  result,  did  he 
go  to  the  library?     Remember  that  this  is  supposed 
to  be  fifty  years  ago.     I  am  afraid  I  must  confess  that 
I    don't   know   where   he  went.      1    fear  that   in   most 
cases  he  didn't  go  at  all,  for  business  men  as  well  as 
libraries  have  grown  in  the  last  half  century— hut  I 
am  quite  sure  that  he  went  nowhere  near  the  library. 
The  reason  was  that  printed  information  of  this 
kind  either  did  not  then  exist  or  was  thought  improper 
for  collection  by  a  scholarly  institution.      If  anyone 
had  asked  for  it  I  know  what  the  librarian  would 'have 
said,  for  the  same  thing  is  occasionally  still  said  by 
librarians,  and    J  hear   it   at   department   stores   and 
everywhere  else  where  there  is  distribution  of  objects 
necessary    to    our    lives.      They    would    have     said— 
"There  has  been  no  demand  for  it,  so  we  don't  need 
to  keep  it,"    Demand  for  it!    Of  course  not.    Is  there 
any  demand  for  fish  in  a  sand-bank  or  for  free- trade 
arguments    in    a    stand-pat    Republican    newspaper? 
People  go  for  things  where  they  know  the  things  are 
to  be  found;  and  they  knew  well  fifty  years  ago  that 
none  of  these  things  were  to  be  found    in    a    library. 
The  sad  tiling  is  that  altho  the  libraries  have  reformed, 
hysteresis  is  still  getting  in  its  deadly  work.     There 
is  a  lag  of  apprehension  and  appreciation  among  our 
business  men,  many  of  whom  think  the  library  is  still 
the  same  old  dusty,    cobwebby    institution    of    1850. 


LIBRARY    AND   THE    BUSINESS    -MAN  273 

Take  niv  word  for  it,  it  is  not.  It  stocks  all  the  thi 
that  the  librarian  used  contemptuously  to  call  biblia 
abiblia— hooks  that  are  no  books  city  directories  by 
the  hundred,  trade  maps,  commercial  information, 
trade  catalogs,  advertising  folders,  railway  announce- 
ments, hundreds  of  things  that  will  answer  the  ques- 
tions t hat  every  business  man  wants,  or  ought  to  want, 
to  know.  We,  or  any  other  library,  may  not  have  pre- 
cisely what  yon  want.  We  are  not  yet  perfect  and  we 
have  much  to  learn.  Hut  we  are  buying  and  putting 
at  the  business  man's  disposal  the  kind  of  material 
t hat  will  help  him  in  his  business. 

The  modern  library  is  democratic,  not  autocratic. 
It  does  not  hand  yon  down  a  volume  from  a  very  high 
shelf  and  tell  you  that  is  exactly  what  you  want  ami 
you  mustn't  ask  for  anything  else.  It  says:  we  are 
the  agents  of  a  co-operative  concern.  For  convenience 
sake,  just  as  in  the  ease  of  the  public  schools,  you  con- 
clude ie  tax  yourselves  to  maintain  a  public  collec- 
tion of  hooks,  instead  of  having  to  form  private  col- 
lections of  your  own,  smaller  and  vastly  more  expen- 
sive. We  are  in  communication  with  every  one  of 
you  by  telephone.  The  machine  for  which  you  have 
paid  is  all  ready  to  work— stoked  and  cleaned  and 
oiled.  Why  don't  you  press  the  button?  Those  who 
don't  are  just  suffering  from  hysteresis — lag  of  appre- 
hension. They  think  the  library  is  what  it  was  in 
L850.      They   are   behind    the  times. 

Am  I  not  afraid  that  if  nil  the  business  men 
should  press  the  button  at  once,  the  library  would 
be  swamped?  There  would  be  a  little  swearing  at 
first,  I  tear.  But  ultimately  there  would  be  a  real- 
ization that  ;i  library  built  and  stocked  and  manned 
to  serve  perhaps  50  business  men  at  once  cannot 
serve  500  or  5000.  There  would  he  pressure  on  the 
legislature;  we  should  have  the  necessary  funds  and 


LIBRARY     ESSAYS 

in  short  order  we  should    be    serving    our    5000    as 
smoothly  as  we  served  our  .*>(►. 

Now  let  us  get  down  to  something  concrete.  Just 
what  information  are  we  prepared  to  give  to  business 
and  industrial  houses?  Here  are  some  actual  ques- 
tions asked  lately  and  answered  in  our  reference  de- 
partments— many  of  them  by  telephone: 

The  uses  of  lye  in  baking  powder. 

History  and   development   of   the  plow. 

Substitute  for  such  commercial  products  as  dyes,  sealskin,  ferti- 
lizers, etc. 

Receipts  for  preparing  in  the  wholesale  manner  mustard  and  salad- 
dressing,  and  for   bottling  olives. 

Methods  of  installing  a  refrigerating  plant. 

Addresses   of   the   manufacturers   of  toys   in   the  United   States. 

How   far  from  the  curb  may  vehicles  be  parked  in  St.  Louis. 

Names   of   manufacturers   of   bottled   buttermilk. 

Dates  of  traffic  legislation  in  England. 

Names  of  the  officers  of  the  Wabash  R.R. 

How  to  calculate  the  depreciation  in  shop  fittings  in  taking  in- 
ventory. 

Change  in  prices  in  Wall  Street  for  the  last  year. 

History  of  speculation  in  the  16th  century. 

Examination  of  the  State  Board  of  Pharmacy  relating  to  the  laws 
of  the  State  of  Missouri  on  the  sale  of  narcotics. 

Pictures  for  advertising  posters,  such  as  "a  Pullman  porter," 
"Hops,"  used  in  a  Bevo  ad. 

"Two  dogs  playing"  for  the  title-page  of  a  piece  of  music  entitled 
"Puppy  love." 

Designs   for  book-covers,  posters,   letter-heads,  by  the  million. 

I  think  I  hear  someone  say — "Do  you  call  that  li- 
brary work?  One  man  at  a  telephone  and  a  pile  of 
circulars  at  the  other  end?"  Yes.  I  do;  didn't  I  tell 
you  that  libraries  had  changed?  When  Archbishop 
Glennon  first  visited  our  new  building',  he  walked  in- 
to the  magnificent  central  hall  and,  looking'  around 
him  said:  "Where  are  the  books?"  The  books  were 
all  in  their  places,  but  they  were  not  in  the  delivery 
hall.  The  bocks  in  a  library  are  quite  as  important  as 
ever.  There  could  be  no  library  without  them.  They 
are  the  library.  But  we  are  laying  more  and  more 
emphasis  on  the  man  behind  the  book.  In  nine  cases 
out  of  ten  he  is  a  woman,  and  increasingly  often  lie 


LIBRARY    AMi    THE    BUSINESS    MAN  275 

is  :it  the  i'ii<]  of  a  telephone  wire.  We  find  thai  in- 
formation slips  over  ;i  t<*I«-j»Ii«»ii<-  wire  quite  easily.  1 1 
saves  the  business  man  an  annoying  trip  and  some- 
times it  saves  our  assistant  from  bearing  ;ill  about  the 
business  man's  last  attack  of  sciatica.  Not  always; 
for  sufferers  have  been  known  to  seek  sympathy  even 
by  telephone.  The  more  they  do  it.  the  more  trunk 
lines  we  have  to  pay  for,  so  the  telephone  company 
doesn't  mind. 

But  it  is  true  thai  in  meeting  the  business  man's 
needs  the  library  is  assimilating  itself  more  and  more 
to  a  huge  information  bureau.  This  is  the  case  espe- 
cially at  our  .Municipal  Reference  Branch  in  the  City 
Hall,  where  we  have  few  books,  properly  so  called. 
many  reports,  pamphlets  and  clippings,  properly  in- 
dexed, and  a  great  deal  of  manuscript  material, 
gathered  by  correspondence  in  answer  t<>  queries  and 
waiting  for  more  queries  on  the  same  subject. 

It  matters  little  whether  what  you  want  is 
bound  between  covers,  or  slipped  into  a  pamphlet  case, 
or  slipped  into  a  niauila  envelope;  it  really  matters 
little  whether  it  is  printed  at  all,  so  hum  as  it  is  in- 
dexed so  that  it  can  be  found  quickly.  We  may  per- 
haps look  forward  to  the  day  when  all  the  bound  books 
in  the  library  will  be  for  home  use,  and  will  give  in- 
formation at  second  hand,  too  late  for  the  business 
man  to  act  promptly  <»'i  it.  The  real  sources  of  up 
to  date  knowledge  will  be,  as  they  often  are  now, 
manuscript  letters,  circulars,  newspaper  clippings 
and  trade  catalogs.  'With  their  inevitable  index  they 
form  a  huge  encyclopedia,  absolutely  up  to  date 

The  printed  cyclopedia  in  umpty-seven  volumes  is 
lucky  if  it  catches  up  with  year  before  last:  it  may 
do  for  your  private  library  where  the  skilful  agent 
has  induced  you  to  put  it.  but  it  is  worthless  in  the 
Business  Man's  collection,  except  on   the  rare  occa- 


276  LIBRARY     ESSAYS 

sions  when  he  wants  the  life  of  Epictetus  or  the  loca- 
tion of  the  Dobrudja.  For  the  Business  Man  we 
want  this  morning's  material.  Shall  we  deny  it,  col- 
lectively, the  name  of  a  library  just  because  the  book- 
binder has  not  been  at  work  on  it,  and  in  many  cases 
will  never  get  the  chance? 

Not  that  the  Business  Man  may  not  read  books 
if  he  wants  them — books  on  commerce,  the  industries, 
transportation,  salesmanship,  advertising,  accounting, 
lie  may  have  them  sent  to  his  home  if  he  likes,  with 
no  more  trouble  than  sitting  down  again  to  his  tele- 
phone. We  use  Uncle  Sam's  n."ssenger  service — his 
parcel  post.  The  only  annoying  thing  about  it  is  that 
he  will  not  deliver  C.  O.  I),  and  we  are  accordingly 
forced  to  ask  for  a  postage  deposit  in  advance — any- 
thing yon  choose,  from  the  postage  on  one  book  one 
way  to  several  dollars.  We  will  notify  you  when  the 
money  is  used  up.  This  combination  of  telephone  and 
parcel  post  seems  to  me  the  ideal  of  library  service 
when  yon  can  name  the  book  you  want  and  don't  care 
to  be  merely  browsing  along  the  shelves.  If  the  book 
is  out,  you  will  be  put  on  the  waiting  list  and  will 
get  it  automatically  when  your  turn  comes.  Why 
does  not  every  citizen  of  St.  Louis  avail  himself  of  this 
easy  service?  Hysteresis,  I  suppose;  thinking  of  the 
old  library  of  1850  and  neglecting  that  of  1917.  Or 
perhaps  it  is  that  provoking  little  advance  payment. 
Pay  beforehand  may  be  a  poor  paymaster,  but  those 
who  work  with  Uncle  Sam  have  to  make  his  acquain- 
tance. 

So  much  for  the  information  to  be  obtained  from 
the  library  by  business  men.  You  are  advertising 
men.  Your  business  is  the  dissemination  of  informa- 
tion. Your  boast  is  that  it  is  your  business  to  tell  the 
truth,  and  I  believe  it.  How  can  the  Library  help 
yon  tell  it?     Well — I  believe  the  Library  to  be  the 


LIBRARY    AND   THE    BUSINESS    .MAN  l'77 

greatest  publicity  field  in  the  world  largely  a  virgin 
field,  for  you  men,  like  everybody  else,  have  u(,t  the 
hysteresis — von  arc  suffering  from  brain  lag  not 
brain  fag.  Yon  think  the  library  is  hack  where  it  was 
in  1850,  when  it  was  the  last  place  in  the  world  wh<  re 
any  sane  man  would  go  for  publicity.  It  was  a  good 
place  to  hide.  They  tell  the  story  of  a  library  in  Phil- 
adelphia, a  beautiful  old  mausoleum,  where  ai 
caped  criminal  once  stayed  in  its  public  reading  room 
for  three  days  before  the  police  found  him.  We  don't 
covet  thai  reputation.  The  modern  library,  I  repeat, 
is  the  very  best  publicity  field  in  the  world.  First, 
as  we  have  seen,  it  is  absolutely  non-partisan,  [f  you 
gel  your  publicity  material  Into  the  library  it  is  be- 
cause the  library  thinks  it  is  good  for  something,  not 
because  yon  have  some  kind  of  a  pull.  Next,  the  peo- 
ple who  frequent  the  library  are  intelligent.  Public- 
ity there  is  like  that  obtained  from  a  high-class  per- 
iodical :  it  is  gilt-edged.  Last  and  not  least,  the  pub- 
licity given  by  the  library  is  incidental.  It  accepts 
your  publicity  material  and  makes  it  available,  not 
because  it  wants  to  boom  your  product  at  the  expense 
of  some  other,  but  because  it  thinks  that  your  male- 
rial  contains  something  of  value  to  the  business  man. 
In  most  cases  its  publicity  is  general,  not  specific. 
Von  know  that  splendid  Eastman  ad — "There's  a 
photographer  in  your  town."  That  makes  a  thrill  run 
down  my  spine  whenever  1  see  it,  jnst  as  Tschaikov- 
sky's  Sixth  symphony  does  or  Homer's  description  of 
Ulysses  fighting  the  Cyclops;  and  for  the  same  reason 
— it  is  a  product  of  genius. 

Advertising  is  more  and  more  bending  this  way. 
Why  couldn't  we  have  seen  it  before?  For  the  same 
reason  that  we  can't  all  write  plays  like  Shakespeare's 
or  compose  Wagner's  operas.  When  two  shoemakers, 
Smith  and  Jones,  had  little  shops  opposite  each  other, 


LIBRARY     ESSAYS 

Smith's  chief  idea  of  advertising  was  to  tell  what 
trash  Jones  was  making,  and  Jones's  to  assure  people 
that  nothing  good  could  come  out  of  Smith's  store. 
What  was  the  result?  The  same  that  induced  the 
darky  to  say  after  he  had  heard  the  political  orators: 
"If  bofe  dese  fellers  tells  de  trufe,  what  a  pair  of  ras- 
cals they  must  be!"  The  net  effect  was  to  put  people's 
minds  on  the  worthlessness  of  the  product,  instead  of 
its  excellence.  Nowadays  Smith  and  Jones  are  get- 
tin-  together,  even  if  they  haven't  been  gobbled  up  by 
the  Trust,  and  art-  assuring  p  ■<>;,],>  that  shoes  are  good 
things  to  have — that  we  ought  to  wear  more  of  them; 
more  kinds  and  Letter  quality.  The  result  is  to  tix 
public  mind  mi  the  excellence  <>f  shoes  and  both 
Smith  and  Jones  sell  more  of  them  than  under  the  old 
method.  The  library  is  willing  to  boom  shoes  for  you, 
and  labor-saving  machinery,  and  food-products,  ami 
textiles  and  seeds,  ami  lighting  ami  heating  devi  s 
It  does  this  to  some  extent  without  your  co-operation, 
by  the  hooks  that  it  places  on  the  shelves;  hut  no  one 
who  knows  will  go  to  a  hook  for  up-to-date  informa- 
tion of  this  sort,  if  you  want  a  description  of  the 
very  latest  device  for  any  purpose,  go  to  the  publicity 
material  of  the  concern  that  makes  it. 

We  trust  to  yon  ad-men  and  your  campaign  for 
truth  in  advertising,  that  it  is  no  fake.  Here  is  wl 
yon  ran  help  us  and  help  your  clients  by  so  doing. 
We  stock  every  hit  of  good,  informative  publicity 
that  we  can  find.  We  miss  much  of  it.  You  can 
help  us  get  it  all.  Your  clients  will  get  more  public- 
ity and  better  publicity  for  nothing  than  they  have 
.  bought  for  hundreds  <>f  dollars.  Perhaps  it  is 
another  effect  of  hysteresis  that  makes  as  afraid  of 
anything  that  is  offered  free.  Yon  remember  the  story 
of  the  man  who  all  day  long,  on  a  bet,  offered  sover- 


LIBRARY    AND    THE    BUSINESS    MAN 

eigns  unsuccessfully  in  exchange  for  shillings  <»n  Lon- 
don Bridge. 

If  we  were  allowed  to  charge  for  our  privileg  - 
believe  we  could  turn  ourselves  into  a  money-making 
institution  on  this  count  of  publicity  alone.  I  believe 
thai  it  would  be  profitable  for  publishers  to  pay  us  for 
putting  their  hooks  on  our  shelves.  It'  we  charged  for 
the  space  Ave  are  giving  to  trade  catalogs,  circulars 
and  other  publicity  material  the  issuers,  I  am  sure, 
would  not  wait  for  ns  to  ask  for  what  they  print.  We 
have  been  trying  for  several  years  to  get  framed  pic- 
tures of  Sr.  Louis  industries  to  hang  in  our  Business 
and  Industrial  Room.  Ef  we  had  asked  |50  per, 
the  privilege  of  using  space  on  the  walls  of  a  public 
institution  J  am  sure  we  could  have  had  it.  But  since 
we  offer  that  space  absolutely  free  of  charge — a  sov- 
ereign for  a  shilling — we  can't  get  what  we  want. 

This  is  special  publicity  too,  not  general.  There 
are  some  other  eases  where  something  about  a  piece 
of  special  publicity  makes  it  so  valuable  to  ns  that  «  > 
display  it.  letting  the  advertiser  get  his  advantage  as 
a  side  issue.  Within  the  last  few  years  we  have  put 
up  boldly  in  our  art  room,  big  glaring  poster  ads  of 
beer,  cigars  and  breakfast  foods.  I  low  much  could 
one  of  you  have  extorted  fr.nn  an  advertiser  if  yon  had 
made  him  believe  that  yon  had  some  kind  of  a  pull 
that  would  enable  yon  to  placard  his  wares  not  on 
Smith's  fence  or  Jones's  barn,  but  actually  on  the  in- 
side of  the  St.  Louis  Public  Library?  Now  these  post- 
ers were  displayed,  of  course,  not  as  inducements  to 
smoke  Fatimas  or  to  drink  Satanet,  but  because  they 
were  goodand  interesting  commercial  art.  We  belt 
that  more  people  see  the  art  on  the  fences  than  that 
in  the  Art  Museum,  and  we  want  to  do  our  part 
toward  making  it  good.     It  has  made  great  strides  of 


280  LIBRARY     ESSAYS 

late,  as  I  think  you  will  acknowledge.  But  answer 
me  this:  was  not  that  valuable  publicity  for  these 
products?  Will  not  the  knowledge  that  similar  pub- 
licity may  await  the  manufacturer  who  gets  out  a 
good  poster,  work  out  to  the  advantage  of  all  con- 
cerned? 

You  know  those  articles  in  System,  of  course,  tell- 
ing what  the  writer  would  do  if  he  were  an  under- 
taker, or  a  druggist,  or  a  farmer.  Well,  if  I  were 
an  ad-man  I  would  get  up  an  exhibition  of 
St.  Louis-made  commercial  art,  advertising  St,  Louis 
products,  and  offer  it  to  the  Public  Library.  We  will 
display  it,  our  only  condition  in  each  case  being  that 
it  is  artistically  worth  display.  Your  clients  will  have 
their  products  advertised  gratis,  in  a  place  where 
space  could  not  be  bought  for  a  million  dollars  a 
square  foot.  You  will  gain  in  reputation  as  a  man 
who  puts  over  big  things:  we  shall  get  an  interest- 
ing display  of  commercial  art,  and  better  than  all  else, 
an  impulse  will  have  been  given  toward  improved 
quality  in  the  poster  art  of  St.  Louis.  This  is  only 
one  instance  of  the  fact,  which  I  believe  to  be  a  fact, 
that  there  is  almost  no  kind  of  advertising  that  can- 
not be  done  in  a  live,  modern  public  library,  if  one 
only  goes  the  right  way  about  it.  Many  go  about  it 
quite  the  wrong  way,  and  do  not  succeed. 

We  do  not  assist  Mrs.  Smith  to  get  piano  pupils 
by  placing  on  our  bulletin  boards  a  scrawled  an- 
nouncement. We  are  not  willing  to  distribute  by  the 
million,  small  dodgers  anouncing  that  Jones's  clothes- 
wringers  are  the  best.  We  do  not  allow  Robinson  to 
lecture  in  one  of  our  assembly  rooms  in  order  to  form 
a  class  in  divine  healing  from  which  he,  and  he  alone, 
will  profit. 

Publicity  furnished  by  us  must  be  incidental,  as  I 
have  said;  or  it  must  be  general,  but  I  believe  it  to 


LIBRARY    AND    THE    BUSINESS    .MAX  -2*1 

be  all  the  more  effective  lor  this,  and  I  invite  your 
attempts  to  make  more  frequent  ami  better  use  of  it 
in  such  ways  as  1  have  suggested.  Study  the  busi- 
ness and  industrial  material  in  our  Applied  Sci 
Room,  or  the  commercial  art  material  in  our  Art 
Room.  Examine  the  collection  of  travel  folders  on 
display  in  our  delivery  hall.  Sec  our  bulletin  of  daily 
attractions  in  St.  Louis,  entered  mouths  ahead  when 
we  can  get  the  information  -and  see  whether  you  do 
not  agree  with  me. 

Now  let  me  remind  you  that  you  are  paying  for 
all  this  service,  whether  you  make  use  of  it  or  not. 
You  are  members  of  the  best  club  in  St.  Louis.  1 
don't  mean  the  Advertising  Men's  Club,  good  as  that 
is;  1  mean  the  Library  Club.  The  taxgatherer  collects 
the  dues:  if  you  are  not  a  taxpayer  you  pay  just  the 
same,  the  burden  being  passed  along  to  you  in  some 
of  the  many  ways  familiar  to  economists.  The  dues 
amount  to  about  three  cents  a  month  for  each  inhab- 
itant of  St.  Louis — not  excessive.  The  club  has  the 
finest  club  house  in  the  city,  the  most  comfortable 
reading  and  study  rooms,  tiie  finesl  and  most  useful 
books,  the  most  intelligent  and  helpful  attendants. 
You  may  have  to  belong  to  other  clubs  that  yon  do 
not  use;  this,  at  least  it  would  be  folly  to  negl 


POETS,   LIBRARIES   AND   REALITIES* 

We  arc  met  to  dedicate  a  temple  of  the  Book  on 
the  birthday  of  a  man  who  did  more  than  any  other 
American,  perhaps,  to  bring  the  book  to  the  hearts 

of  the  masses.  All  poetry,  all  song,  begins  with  the 
people,  in  the  months  of  humble  singers.  Elabora- 
tion, refinement,  unintelligent  imitation,  carry  them 
both  away  from  popular  appreciation,  until  finally 
someone  like  James  Whitcomb  Riley  brings  them 
hack.  Great  poetry  is  always  about  familiar  things. 
Homeric  epics  tell  of  the  kind  of  fighting  that  every 
Greek  knew  at  first  hand.  The  shepherds  and  shep- 
herdesses of  the  earliest  pastorals  were  the  everyday 
workers  of  the  fields.  It  was  only  at  a  later  day 
the  epic  and  pastoral  grew  artificial  because  the  poets 
did  their  best  to  keep  them  unchanged  while  the 
things  of  which  they  told  had  passed  away.  Only 
when  the  poets  forget  the  stilted  symbols  which  once 
were  real  and  discover  that  they  themselves  are  sur- 
rounded by  realities  worthy  of  verse  does  poetry  again 
become  popular.  It  is  this  phenomenon  that  we  are 
witnessing  today. 

Kveryone  who  has  had  occasion  to  keep  in  touch 
with  popular  taste  will  tell  you  that  the  increased 
love  for  poetry  shown  in  the  publication  of  verse,  the 
purchase  of  it,  the  study  of  it,  the  demand  for  it  at 
public  libraries,  is  nothing  less  that)  astounding. 
That  this  represents  any  sudden  change  in  the  pub- 
lic, I  cannot  believe.  The  public  has  always  loved 
verse.     The  child  chants  it  in  his  games;  he  drinks  it 

•  Address  at   the  opening  of   the   new   building:  of   the   Indianapolis 
Public  Library. 


284  LIBRARY     ESSAYS 

in  greedily  at  his  mother's  knee.  He  begs  for  it,  even 
when  he  cannot  understand  it,  just  for  the  joy  of  its 
rhythm,  its  lilt.  But  when  the  great  poets  go  to  the 
abodes  of  the  gods,  or  to  regions  as  far  away  in  esthet- 
ics or  metaphysics,  for  their  subjects,  they  carry  their 
product  beyond  public  appeal.  When  our  great  verse 
is  all  remote  and  the  familiar  things  are  left  to  folk- 
lore and  rag-time,  then  folk-lore  and  rag-time  will 
monopolize  public  attention  and  fill  the  heart  of  the 
people.  It  is  this  feeling,  on  the  part  of  many  poets, 
that  the  familiar  things  of  life  are  beneath  their  no- 
tice, that  has  made  poetry  so  long  unpopular.  The 
feeling  is  quite  unjustified.  All  the  great  elemental 
things  are  also  among  the  most  familiar— birth,  death, 
love,  grief,  joy,  in  human  experience :  in  the  outer 
world,  day  and  night,  winter  and  summer,  storm,  wind 
and  flood.  And  affiliated  with  these  are  all  the  little 
everyday  things  of  which  Riley  sings— the  bathing 
urchins,  the  ragged  farm  hand,  the  old  tramp,  the  lit- 
tle orphan  girl  with  her  tales  of  fright,  the  rabbit 
under  the  railroad  ties.  When  the  modern  reader 
first  read  in  verse  about  such  things  there  was  a  rush 
of  red  blood  to  the  heart,  with  a  recognition  of  the 
fact  that  verse  had  come  down  from  Olympus  to  earth, 
and  that  after  all,  earth  is  where  we  live  and  that  life 
and  its  emotions  and  events  are  both  important  and 
poetical. 

I  am  not  denying  the  poetry  of  romance,  but  we 
should  remember  that  this  too,  has  its  roots  in  reality. 
Even  the  most  imaginative  works  must  be  based,  in 
the  last  analysis,  on  the  real.  Take  for  instance  such 
works  as  Poe's.  Poe  despised  realism.  His  best 
work  is  about  half  imagination  and  half  form.  Yet 
when  he  succeeds  in  rousing  in  us  the  mingled  emo- 
tions of  fear  and  horror  on  which  so  many  of  his  ef- 
fects depend  he  is  using  for  his  purposes  what  was 


POETS,    LIBRABIES,    REALITIES 

once  a  defensive  mechanism  of  the  human  organism, 
causing  it  to  shrink  from  and  avoid  the  real  things — 
wild  beasts,  enemies,  the  forces  of  nature — thai  were 
striving  continually  to  overwhelm  and  destroy  it. 
Without  the  survival  of  this  defensive  mechanism  of 
fear  and  horror,  Poe's  tales  would  have  no  dominion 
over  the  human  mind.  In  fact,  the  main  difference 
between  what  we  call  realism  and  romanticism  is 
that  while  both  have  their  relations  with  the  real 
facts  of  life,  the  facts  on  which  romanticism  depends 
are  unfamiliar,  distant  and  distorted,  while  realism 
deals  with  that  which  is  near  at  hand  and  familiar. 
Knights  in  armor,  distressed  damsels,  donjon  keeps 
and  forests  of  spears  were  once  as  everyday  affairs  ;is 
aeroplanes  are  now,  or  gas  attacks,  or  the  British 
tanks.  These  all  have  in  them  the  elements  of  ro- 
mance; and  when  they  too  have  passed,  as  God  grant 
they  may,  they  will  doubtless  take  their  place  in  the 
equipment  of  the  poetical  romanticist.  Not  these  re- 
alities that  pass,  but  those  that  are  with  us  always, 
are  the  ones  that  inspire  verse  like  Riley's. 

Those  who  love  to  study  group-psychology,  and 
who  realize  that  we  have  in  the  motion-picture  audi- 
ence one  of  the  most  wonderful  places  to  observe  it 
that  ever  has  been  vouchsafed  to  mortals,  may  see 
every  night  the  hold  that  this  kind  of  realism  has 
over  the  popular  mind.  Armed  hosts  may  surge 
across  the  screen,  volcanoes  may  belch  and  catastro- 
phe may  be  piled  on  catastrophe.  The  eyes  of  the 
spectators  may  bulge  and  their  mouths  may  gape, 
but  they  remain  untouched,  lint  let  a  little  dog  ap- 
pear with  his  tongue  out  and  his  tail  awag;  let  a 
small  babe  lie  in  its  cradle  and  double  up  its  tiny 
fists  and  yell,  and  at  once  you  have  evidence  that  the 
picture  has  penetrated  the  skin  of  the  house  and  got 
down  to  the  quick.     Homely  realities  make  an  appeal 


286  LIBRARY     ESSAYS 

that  neither  the  knights  in  armor  of  the  fourteenth 
entury  nor  the  tanks  in  armor  of  the  twentieth  are 
able  to  exert.  Gilbert,  who  wrote  many  a  truth  in 
the  guise  of  jest,  never  said  a  truer  thing  than  when 
lie  made  Bunthorne  proclaim  that  in  all  Nature's 
works  "something  poetic  lurks" — 

Even  in   Colocynth  and  Calomel. 

That  is  the  poet's  mission — to  show  us  the  poetry 
in  the  things  that  we  bad  never  looked  upon  as  within 
poetry's  sphere.  They  are  all  doing  it  now — Noyes, 
Rlasefield  and  all  the  rest,  and  the  public  has  risen 
at  them  as  one  man. 

1  f  James  Whitcomb  Riley  were  here  today  I  should 
take  him  by  the  band  and  say,  "Beloved  poet,  you 
have  known  bow  to  touch  the  great  heart  of  the  peo- 
ple quickly  and  deeply.  That  is  what  we  must  all 
do,  if  we  are  to  succeed.  We  librarians  must  do  it 
if  our  libraries  are  to  be  more  than  paper  and  glue 
and  leather.     Teach  us  the  way." 

Our  libraries  are  closer,  far  closer,  to  the  people 
today  than  they  were  fifty  years  ago.  They  can  never 
get  as  close  as  an  individual  voice  like  Riley's,  for 
they  are  a  combination,  not  even  a  harmonious  chor- 
us, but  a  jumble  of  sounds  from  all  regions  and  all 
ages.  Yet  we  must  not  forget  that  in  every  instru- 
ment of  music  there  is  a  potential  mass  of  discord. 
The  skilled  player  selects  his  tones  and  produces 
them  in  proper  sequence  and  rhythm;  and  lo!  a  sweet 
melody!  So  the  librarian  may  play  upon  his  mass 
of  books,  selecting  and  grouping  and  bringing  into 
correspondence  his  own  tones  and  the  receptive 
minds  of  bis  community,  until  every  man  sees  in  the 
library  not  a  jumble  but  a  harmony,  not  a  promoter 
of  intellectual  confusion  but  a  clarifier  of  ideas.  In 
some  such  fashion  it  is  allowed  him  to  get  close  to 


POETS,    LIBRARIES,    REALITIES        287 

the  minds  and  hearts  of  his  community  as  Riley  did 

to  his  readers. 

We  arc  realizing  today,  we  of  the  library  world, 

that  it  is  u  poor  instrument  thai  yields  but  one  tunc, 
and  a  poor  player  who  is  aide  to  produce  only  one. 
The  librarians  of  the  early  days  were  of  this  kind; 
so  were  their  libraries.  The  tune  they  played  was  the 
tune  of  scholarship  a  -rami  old  melody  enough,  and 
yet  with  the  right  keyboard  one  may  play  not  only 
fugues  and  chorals  but  the  waltz  and  even  the  one- 
step.  The  scholar  will  find  his  refuge  in  this  great 
building,  hut  here  also  will  he  a  multitude  of  func- 
tions undreamt  of  in  the  early  library  day  — the  selec- 
tion of  literature  for  children  and  their  supervision 
while  they  use  it.  co-op,. ration  with  the  schools,  the 
training  of  library  workers,  the  publication  of  lists 
and  other  library  aids,  helpful  cataloging  and  Index- 
ing, the  provision  of  hooks  and  assistance  for  special 
classes,  such  as  engineers,  business  men  or  teachers, 
a  staff  and  facilities  for  all  kinds  of  extension  work. 
filling  the  space  around  the  library  as  a  magnet's 
field  of  force  surrounds  its  material  body.  A  modern 
library  is  a  city's  headquarters  in  its  strife  against 
ignorance  and  inefficiency;  its  working  force  is  a  gen- 
eral staff — hooks,  ammunition  for  the  fighter  and 
food  for  the  worker. 

of  the  poet  I  have  said  that  his  ability  to  gain 
the  public  ear  and  to  reach  the  public  heart  is  closely 
hound  up  with  the  portrayal  of  realities.  This  is 
true  also  of  the  library.  Every  step  of  its  progress 
from  a  merely  scholarly  institution  to  a  widely  pop- 
ular one  has  been  marked  by  the  introduction  of  more 
red  blood,  more  real  life,  into  its  organism.  The 
frequenter  of  the  older  library  went  there  to  find 
hooks  on  the  pure    sciences,    on    philosophy,    in    the 


288  LIBRARY     ESSAYS 

drama,  in  poetry.  These  we  of  today  in  no  wise  neg- 
lect, but  we  entertain  also  those  who  look  for  books 
on  plumbing,  on  the  manufacture  of  hats,  shoes  and 
clothing,  on  salesmanship  and  cost  accounting,  on 
camping  and  fishing,  on  firsl  aid  to  the  injured,  on 
the  products  of  Sonoma  county,  California.  Our 
assistants  take  over  the  telephone  requests  to  furnish 
the  population  of  Bulgaria,  the  average  temperature 
of  Nebraska  in  the  month  of  June,  plans  for  bunga- 
lows not  to  cost  more  than  f  1750,  pictures  of  the  Win- 
ter Palace  in  Petrograd,  sixty  picture  postals  of  Bal- 
timore for  a  reflectoscope  lecture,  a  copy  of  a  poem 
beginning  "O  beauteous  day!"  the  address  of  the 
speaker's  uncle  who  left  Salem,  Massachusetts,  for 
the  West  twenty-six  years  ago.  Everyone  of  these 
queries  throbs  with  the  red  blood  of  reality.  Few  of 
them  would  have  been  considered  within  the  library's 
scope  fifty  years  ago.  Books  are  written  nowadays 
about  all  such  subjects,  whereas  in  the  earlier  day 
the  knowledge  of  these  things  and  the  ability  to  write 
of  them  did  not  reside  in  the  same  person.  So  the 
library's  progress  toward  the  realities  is  but  the  ex- 
pression of  that  same  progress  in  literature,  using  the 
word  in  its  widest  sense  to  signify  all  that  may  lurk 
between  the  covers  of  a  book.  The  contemptuous 
name  of  biblia  abiblia — books  that  are  no  books — 
which  the  earlier  writers  bestowed  upon  dictionaries, 
directories,  indexes,  lists  and  the  like,  is  disregarded 
by  the  modern  librarian.  He  prizes  a  list  of  all  the 
grocers  in  the  United  States ;  he  points  with  pride  to 
his  collection  of  hundreds  of  telephone  directories; 
he  has  names  galore  in  alphabetical  array — indexes 
to  places,  persons,  pictures,  events  and  books.  All 
these  things  are  as  much  a  part  of  his  library  as  the 
Iliad  of  Homer  or  the  dramas  of  Calderon. 

Put  the  librarian   does  not  stop  here.     He  con- 


POETS,    LIBRARIES,    REALITIES        289 

ceives  that  it  is  his  duty  to  deal  not  only  with  hooks 
but  with  what  we  may  call  adjuncts  to  books— things 
which  may  lead  to  books  those   who   do   not    read- 
things  that  may  interpret  hooks  to  those  who  read 
but  do  not  read  understandingly  or  appreciatively. 
Some  of  our  brothers  beyond  the  sea  have  critici 
us  American  librarians   for   the   freedom— nay,   the 
abandon— with     which     we      have      thrown      our- 
selves    into     the     search     for     such     adjuncts     and 
the  zeal  with    which    we    have    striven    to    make    use 
of  them.     It  has  been  our  aim  of  late  years,  for  in- 
stance, to  make  of  the  library  a  community  center — 
to  do  everything  that  will  cause  its  neighbors  to  feel 
that  it  is  a  place  where   they    will    he   welcome,    for 
whatever  cause  and  that  they  may  look  to  it  for  aid, 
sympathy  and  appreciation  in  whatever  emergency. 
If  the  life  of  the  community  thus  centers  in  the  lihra- 
ry,  we  have  felt  that  the  community  cannot  fail  ul- 
timately to  take  an  interest  in  the  library's  contents 
and  in  its  primary  function.     The  branch  lihraries 
in  many  of  our  cities  are  such   local  centers.      Here 
one  may  find  the  neighbors  round  about  holding  an 
exhibition  of  needlework,  the  children  dancing,  the 
young  men  debating  questions  of  the  day,  the  wo- 
men's clubs  discussing  their  programs,  the  local  musi- 
cal society  rehearsing  a  cantata,  Sunday  schools  pre- 
paring for  a  festival,  the  ward  meeting  of  a  political 
party.     In  one  of  our  own  branch  lihraries,  in  a  well- 
to-do  neighborhood,  the  librarian  said  to  one  of  the 
young  men  at  a  social   meeting,    "I    am    curious    to 
know   why   you   come   here.      You   could   all   afford,    I 
know,  to  rent  a  larger  and  better  hall:  or  you  could 
meet   in  your  own    homes."      The  young  man    looked 
at  her  with  surprise,  "Why,"   he  said,  "we  like  this 
place.     We  all  .m-ew   up  in  this  library."     I  confess 
that  this  anecdote  sends  a  little  thrill  of  satisfaction 


290  LIBRARY     ESSAYS 

thru  me  every  time  I  tell  it.  What  could  a  librarian 
desire  more  than  to  have  his  neighborhood  "grow  up" 
in  his  library— to  have  the  books  as  their  room- 
mates— to  feel  that  they  would  rather  be  in  that  one 
spot  than  any  other?  On  what  a  point  of  vantage 
docs  this  place  him!  How  much  more  readily  will 
his  neighbors  listen  to  the  good  genius  of  a  much- 
loved  spot  than  to  the  keeper  of  a  jail!  Just  here, 
of  (nurse,  is  the  strong  point  of  the  so-called  Gary 
system,  which  has  so  much  in  common  with  our  mod- 
em library  ideas.  Whatever  may  be  its  faults,  it  at 
least  makes  of  the  school  what  we  librarians  have 
long  sought  to  make  of  the  library — a  place  that  will 
be  loved  by  its  inmates  instead  of  loathed.  This  once 
gained  there  is  hardly  any  result  that  we  may  not 
bring  about. 

And  now  let  us  consider  at  least  one  thing  more 
that  we  may  gain  from  this  intimate  contact  with 
the  life  of  the  community  around  us. 

Formalism  has  been  the  death  of  art,  of  literature, 
of  science,  in  many  an  age.  It  has  atrophied  an  en- 
tire civilization,  as  it  did  in  China.  It  paralyzed 
Egyptian  art;  it  would  have  paralyzed  Greek  art,  if 
the  Greeks  had  not  had  the  vitality  to  throw  it  off. 
Art,  literature  and  science  are  never  sufficient  unto 
themselves.  They  must  all  drink  continually  at  the 
fresh  springs  of  reality.  To  move  up  to  date  with  our 
metaphor,  they  must  all  get  fresh  current  from  the 
feeders  of  nature  if  the  trolley  wire  is  to  be  kept  "live" 
and  the  motor  running.  Those  perennial  currents 
that  Ampere  conceived  of  as  chasing  themselves  round 
and  round  the  molecules  of  matter  could  keep  going 
only  in  the  absence  of  resistance,  and  that  is  some- 
thing that  we  may  imagine  or  talk  about,  but  that 
does  not  really  exist.  Every  electric  current  will 
stop  unless  a  continuous  electro-motive  force  is  behind 


POETS,    LIBRARIES,    REALITIES 

it;  every  river  will  dry  up  unless  fed  by  Living  springs. 
All  art,  all  literature,  all  science,  will  shrivel  <>wt  of 

existence,  or  ;it  any  rate  out  of  usefulness,  if  those 
who  practice  it  think  thai  nil  they  have  to  do  is  to 
copy  some  trick,  some  method,  some  symptom  per- 
haps of  real  genius,  of  their  predecessors.  Aristotle 
was  a  real  scientist,  tho  his  outlook  was  not  ours. 
But  those  who  kept  on  copying  Aristotle  for  centuries 
and  would  not  believe  what  they  saw  with  their  own 
eyes  unless  they  could  confirm  it  with  .1  passage  from 
his  writings — they  were  no  scientists  al  all.  We  have 
recovered  from  their  formalism  as  Greek  art  re- 
covered from  the  formalism  of  the  lions  of  Mycenae. 

Who  shall  say  thai  .lames  Whitcoinb  Riley  did 
not  do  just  this  when  he  chose  to  abandon  the  stock 
in  trade  of  the  standard  poets  and  put  into  verse 
what  he  saw  about  him  here  in  Indiana?  It  is  not 
beyond  the  possibilities,  of  course,  that  his  own  fresh 
point  of  view  may  one  day  succumb  to  formalism — 
that  his  little  Qrphant  Annies  and  his  raggedy  men 
may  become  familiar  to  posterity  through  the  work 
of  a  school  of  copyists  who  prefer  to  write  about  an 
Indiana  that  they  never  saw  in  a  period  when  they 
never  lived,  instead  of  going  themselves  to  the  fresh 
inspiration  of  the  realities  about  them.  Now,  of 
course,  the  current  or  the  river  of  art  or  poetry  must 
run  a  little  while  by  itself;  it  cannot  be  all  spring. 
Only,  the  fresh  inspiration  must  not  be  delayed  too 
long,  lest  the  current  or  the  river  be  dried. 

In  a  recent  article  on  current  British  novelists, 
one  of  our  own  most  gifted  writers.  Mrs.  Gerould, 
says  with  some  truth  that  the  stories  of  the  younger 
realists  in  England — Compton  Mackenzie.  Oliver 
Onions.  Hugh  Walpole,  Gilbert  Caiman  and  their  kin 
— are  so  similar  in  subject,  treatment  and  style,  that. 
they  might  almost  be  interchangeable,  she  wittily  d *- 


LIBRARY     ESSAYS 

velops  the  idea  of  a  syndicate — the  British  Novelists, 
Limited— in  which  one  writer  is  told  to  do  the  de- 
scriptions, another  the  character-drawing  and  a  third 
the  thrills.  Mrs.  Gerould  is  hardly  fair  here.  These 
young  men  are  almost  the  first  writers  in  the  English 
language  to  do  just  what  they  are  accomplishing. 
They  are  by  turns  engrossing  and  boresome,  but  they 
are  like  the  boy  who  lias,  all  by  himself,  picked  out 
a  succession  of  chords  on  the  piano.  The  harmony 
thrills  him,  but  he  is  in  danger  of  keeping  it  up  so 
long  that  he  will  drive  his  hearers  daft.  When  our 
British  realists  have  over- worked  their  new  vein, 
their  sales  will  fall  off  and  their  publishers  will  see 
that  fresh  ore  is  brought  to  light  ere  more  of  their 
work  reaches  the  public.  How  shall  we  ensure  that 
this  new  ore  shall  be  at  hand — the  jungle  cleared  so 
that  there  may  be  a  fresh  vista? 

I  may  be  taking  too  much  upon  my  chosen  profes- 
sion ;  hut  I  cannot  help  thinking  that  this  is  one  of  the 
tasks  with  which  Ave  librarians  shall  have  to  grapple. 
We  have  ourselves,  as  we  have  seen,  come  lately  into 
more  intimate  touch  with  the  realities  about  us.  Can 
we  not  put  into  literature  what  we  are  taking  from 
life  and  so  act  as  the  feeders  that  shall  keep  civiliza- 
tion from  drying  up  or  turning  to  stone?  This  is 
perhaps  a  startling  idea.  A  book  is  a  record.  In  the 
nature  of  things  there  is  no  progress  in  a  record. 
And  we  are  the  keepers  of  the  records  of  civilization ; 
how  then  shall  we  be  also  founts  of  inspiration? 

In  this  way;  records  stand,  but  the  things  that 
they  record  progress.  We  must  go  to  the  library  to 
find  out  where  humanity  stands  on  the  road  and  what 
lies  before  us.  If  our  public  comes  to  us  naturally 
to  read  these  records  and  if  our  writers  know  this  and 
write  for  a  public  interested  in  reality,  the  library 
has  done  its  part.     Before  this  linkage  can  function 


POETS,    LIBRARIES,    REALITIES        293 

truly,  we  must,  have  authors  who  realize  thai  there 

is  a  special  library  public  and  who  write  for  it.  We 
ar<-  told  that  the  English  publishers,  before  they  a<- 
cept  a  manuscript  ask,  "How  many  will  the  circula- 
ting libraries  take?"  They  mean  the  great  commer 
rial  subscription  Libraries  like  Mudie's  and  Smith's. 
The  patronage  of  these  libraries  is  more  Important 
to  them  than  that  of  the  public  at  Large,  or  at  any 
rate,  they  feel  thai  they  can  rely  upon  it  as  an  indica- 
tion of  \\  hat  that  of  the  public  at  Large  will  be.  There 
is  a  Library  public  that  they  recognize  and  respect 
We  have  nothing  in  the  United  States  to  correspond 
to  .Mu<lie*s  and  Smith's,  our  great  circulating  libra- 
ries are  our  free  public  libraries.  Do  authors  or  pub- 
lishers or  booksellers  recognize  the  public  library  as 
a  force  to  be  reckoned  with,  either  apart  from  other 
readers  or  as  indicative  of  what  other  readers  will 
think  or  do?  I  once  made  an  investigation  of  this 
question  and  I  was  compelled  to  acknowledge,  as  I 
am  still  forced  to  admit,  that  there  is  no  such  recog- 
nition. Neither  author  nor  publisher  consciously 
does  anything  different,  because  there  are  public  li- 
brary readers,  from  what  he  would  do,  if  all  our  pub- 
lic libraries  were  wiped  off  the  face  of  the  earth.  My 
hope  for  the  future  lies  in  a  justified  suspicion  that 
though  neither  is  consciously  affected,  both  do  recog- 
nize the  library  public  unconsciously  and  indirectly. 
Both  would  admit  that  their  output  has  been  affected 
by  the  great  extension  of  the  reading  public  and  its 
consequent  alteration  in  quality.  A  discussion  of  the 
exact  effect  would  lead  us  too  far  afield.  The  point  is 
that  the  literary  product  has  been  changed  by  a 
Change  in  the  numbers  and  quality  of  the  reading  pub- 
lic, and  that  this  change  has  been  brought  about 
no  small  degree  by  the  establishment  and  popularity 
of  public  libraries.      Possibly  it  is  not  too  much  to 


294  LIBRARY     ESSAYS 

expect  that  this  unconscious  recognition  will  give 
place  to  a  conscious  one,  and  that  the  producers'  mu- 
tual influence  bring  each  other  into  more  frequent 
contact  with  reality. 

Now,  there  may  be  some  here  who,  wondering  at 
my  classification  of  the  Hoosier  poet,  are  saying  to 
themselves,  "Was  Riley  also  among  the  Realists?" 
And  1  ask  in  turn,  why  has  Realism  come  to  connote 
a  proportion  of  things  that  do  not  enter  at  all  into 
the  lives  of  most  of  us?  We  have  all  known  and 
loved  the  old  swimmin'  hole;  how  many  of  us  are 
familiar  with  the  man  who  commits  suicide,  not  to 
end  an  intolerable  situation,  not  in  a  frenzy  of  grief 
or  remorse,  but  just  to  see  what  will  happen?  Yet 
when  a  Russian  writes  about  such  anomalies  as  this 
our  critics  say,  "What  wonderful  realism!"  If  real- 
ism is  anything,  it  must  surely  be  real.  There  is  mor- 
bidity in  life;  we  cannot  avoid  it  or  overlook  it.  But 
is  there  anything  in  life  that  corresponds  to  ninety- 
nine  per  cent  of  morbidity?  Not  in  my  life,  nor  in 
yours.  For  you  and  for  me,  Riley  is  a  realist.  God 
forbid  that  he  may  ever  be  anything  else. 

Tli ere  is  something  in  the  situation  of  this  city  in 
which  we  are  assembled,  that  encourages  men  to 
look  life  straight  in  the  face.  Those  who  dwell  amid 
rocky  heights  and  caverns  may  be  excused  for  look- 
ing behind  them  when  they  walk  and  for  trembling 
at  shadows.  The  sailor  between  whom  and  eternity 
there  stands  only  a  two-inch  plank  may  live  largely 
among  unrealities.  But  the  man  of  the  open  prairie, 
with  God's  solid  earth  stretching  aAvay  north,  south, 
east  and  west,  and  God's  free  air  above  and  about 
him,  stands  firmly  and  sees  clearly.  What  interests 
him  is  the  present  and  its  necessary  relationships 
with  the  future,  with  only  so  much  of  the  past  as  is 


POETS,    LIBBABIES,    REALITH  295 

able  to  consolidate  these  relationships  and  illumine 
them.  Here,  as  one  would  expect,  is  growing  op  a 
school  of  representative  artists,  working  some  with 
the  pen  and  others  with  the  brush,  whose  aim  and 
whose  high  privilege  it  La  to  record  these  relation- 
ships on  canvas  and  on  the  printed  page,  each  in 
his  own  fashion,  of  course,  for  a  love  for  the  outer 
realities  can  never  d<>  away  with  that  supreme  Inner 
reality,  a  man's  own  sell'  that  which  looks  out  ap- 
on  the  world  and  sees  that  world  through  its  own 
spectacles.  It  is  the  triumph  of  all  art  that  faith- 
fully as  it  may  represent  what  it  sees,  its  representa- 
tions will  still  be,  in  large  part,  functions  of  the  art 
Ist's  <>wii  mood,  so  that  the  same  scene,  tin-  same 
event,  portrayed  by  different  writers  or  different 
painters,  may  arouse  in  as  emotions  as  varied  as  joy, 
grief  or  mere  restfulness.  And  of  course,  although 
we  may  praise  -lames  Whitcomb  Riley  portraying 
what  he  saw  about  him  there  would  he  little  to  praise 
if  he  were  not  at  the  same  time  portraying  -lames 
Whitcomb  Riley  and  if  that  portrayal  were  not  worth 
while. 

1  like  to  think  that  what  we  librarians  are  doing 
is  in  some  measure  akin  to  the  work  of  the  artists  of 
pen  or  brush,  though  perhaps  in  a  secondary  way. 
The  writer  interprets  reality;  we  interpret  the  writers 
themselves.  Here  is  a  case  where  we  cannot  have  too 
many  middlemen,  for  each,  instead  of  piling  up  cost 
to  the  consumer,  piles  up  the  value  of  the  product 
How  many  men  could  sit  in  a  country  churchyard 
;it  evening  and  see  unaided  what  Gray  saw'.'  Cray 
in  his  Elegy  records  that  churchyard  and  himself  as 
well.  But  how  many  men  does  Cra\  fail  to  reach? 
How  many,  whom  he  would  rejoice  or  comfort,  never 
heard  him?     And  to  Gray,  in  this  query,  let  as  add 


296  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

the  Dames  of  all  the  good  and  great  in  literature. 
Eere  is  where  the  librarian  steps  in.  He  presents 
Gray  and  Gray's  fellow  artists  in  words,  to  his  public. 

Years  ago  the  library  was  merely  a  storehouse  and 
the  Librarian  the  custodian  thereof.  Today  the  libra- 
ry is  a  magazine  of  dynamic  force  and  the  librarian 
is  the  man  who  exerts  and  directs  it — who  persuades 
the  community  that  it  needs  books  and  then  satisfies 
that  need,  instead  of  waiting  for  the  self-realization 
which  too  often  will  never  come.  Does  not  the  libra- 
rian in  some  fashion  interpret  life  and  nature  to  his 
public,  through  books  in  general,  even  as  the  writer 
interprets  them  through  one  particular  book? 

This  may  seem  fantastic,  but  I  like  to  think  that  it 
is  true.  The  October  air  in  these  autumn  days  is 
full  of  megaphonic  voices,  each  insisting  on  its  right 
to  be  heard  above  all  the  others.  We  are  urged  to 
enlist  in  the  British  army,  to  buy  Liberty  bonds,  to 
build  huts  for  the  Y.M.C.A.  and  the  Knights  of  Co- 
lumbus, to  work  for  the  Red  Cross,  to  buy  tobacco  for 
the  soldiers,  and  at  the  same  time  to  support  all  our 
local  charities  and  pay  our  club  dues  as  usual,  not 
neglecting  to  respond  to  the  calls  of  the  tax  collec- 
tor. We  librarians  have  ourselves  used  the  mega- 
phone to  some  purpose,  having  as  you  know,  raised 
a  million  dollars  to  establish  and  maintain  camp  li- 
braries, giving  our  soldiers  the  same  public  library 
facilities  that  they  enjoy  at  home. 

But  in  the  midst  of  all  this  distracting  chorus  let 
us  not  forget  that  our  normal  lives  must  function  as 
usual,  despite  the  abnormalities  that  surround  and 
interpenetrate  them.  The  opening  of  this  noble  li- 
brary building  ami  the  character  of  this  assembly 
a iv  proofs  that  we  intend  to  live  as  usual,  even  amid 
so  much  that  is  unusual. 

I  see  no  limit  to  the  usefulness  of  this  building 


POETS,    LIBRARIES,    REALITIES        291 

and  of  the  institution  whose  home  it  is  to  be.  The 
house  is  new  but  its  occupant  has  been  long  and  favor- 
ably known  t<»  your  citizens,  [ndianapolis  has  libra- 
ry traditions,  and  is  what  we  librarians  call  a  "good 
library  town.'*  Your  library  has  had  good  leadership 
and  it  is  to  continue,  adding  the  force  and  freshness 
of  the  new  to  the  strength  and  experience  of  the  old. 
The  memory  of  your  dearly  loved  poet  will  be  brought 
to  the  mind  of  each  library  user  -by  the  children's 
room  that  hears  his  name,  by  the  land  that  he  gave 
to  enlarge  its  site,  by  this  enduring  portraiture — by  a 
thousand  and  one  things,  none  th"  less  cogent  for  be- 
ing intangible.  I  look  to  see  this  library,  in  the  home 
city  of  James  Whitcomb  Riley,  grow  into  a  place  in 
th"  public  heart  comparable  with  that  which  was 
attained  by  Riley  himself.  It  should  he  loved  for  its 
broad  minded  humanity,  for  its  sympathy  with  man- 
kind, especially  with  little  children,  for  its  readiness 
to  "rejoice  with  those  that  do  rejoice  and  weep  with 
those  thai  weep,"  for  its  quick  response  to  the  personal 
and  spiritual  needs  of  every  reader,  and  above  all  for 
its  firm  hold  on  the  realities  of  life  and  its  apprecia- 
tion of  life  as  something  that  is  lived  on  the  farm,  in 
the  city  street,  in  the  office,  the  school  and  the  club, 
not  in  the  clouds,  not  in  fog  and  mist,  not  with  the 
improbable  or  the  impossible.  That  it  will  do  and  he 
all  these  things  we  may  he  confident  Riley  the  well 
beloved  is  gone.  His  memory  lives  on;  let  it  live  with 
peculiar  force  and  vividness  in  this  library,  in  its  at- 
titude toward  those  whom  it  serves — in  the  affection 
which  they  in  turn  feel  toward  an  institution  that 
has  long  been,  and  will  long  continue  to  he  a  center  of 
literary,  civic  and  intellectual  force  in  the  city  where 
Rilev  lived  and  wrote. 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  PUBLIC  LIBRARY 

The  years  immediately  succeeding  the  great  \\ar 
are- to  witness  great  progress  in  team-work.  The  war 
is  teaching  us  to  get  together,  and  it  is  impossible  to 
believe  that  the  lessons  we  are  now  Learning  will  be 
suddenly  and  totally  forgotten  with  the  advent  of 
peace.  The  world  is  full  of  Institutions,  associations, 
corporate  bodies  of  all  kinds,  founded  on  a  knowledge 
of  what  may  be  accomplished  by  the  cooperation  of 
individuals;  but  the  cooperation  of  these  bodies  them- 
selves, one  with  another,  has  been  faulty  until  recent- 
ly. 

The  public  library  is  cooperative  in   its  very  es- 
sence.    Its  business  is  to  help  others.    Were  there  no 
public  for  it  to  serve,  its  very  necessity  for  existence 
would  go.     In  the  older  days  it  merely  sat  with  folded 
hands,  ready  to  serve.     Of  later  years  ii  has  become  a 
compelling  force,  peaching  out  into  the  community  by 
;1  thousand  tendrils  and  attaching  them  to  whatever 
individual,  or  body  of  individuals,  seems  to  be  in  need 
—often  without  knowing  it— of  library  service.    The 
public  library's  relations  with  the  schools,  with  tin' 
business  man,  with  the  industries,  with  the  milit 
gervic* — you  will  find  these  all  discus!  over  and  over 
again,  not  only  in  the  technical  magazines  devoted  to 
library  work,  but  in  the  public  press. 

Ami  yet  we  look  in  vain  for  a  discussion  of  the 
public  library's  relations  with  the  Church.  Why  is 
this?  The  Church  itself  is  in  the  cooperative  class 
with  the  library.     It  exists  t<»  help  mankind.    Without 


300  LIBRAE  Y     ESSAYS 

a  humanity  to  help,  and  a  humanity  weak  and  fallible 
enough  to  need  help,  its  mission  would  be  over.  In 
studying  this  question  I  And  an  unaccountable  timid- 
ity on  both  sides.  On  the  one  hand,  librarians  and  li- 
braries seem  to  be  shy  of  religion.  They  rarely  pur- 
chase religious  books  in  any  systematic  way.  They 
are  afraid  of  denominational  literature,  both  books 
and  periodicals,  apparently  on  the  ground  that  those 
presenting  the  view  of  one  religious  body  might  be 
objected  to  by  other  bodies.  Some  libraries  refuse  to 
subscribe  for  any  denominational  papers,  but  will  ac- 
cept them  as  gifts.  Many  libraries  refuse  to  allow 
the  holding  of  religious  meetings  in  their  buildings, 
probably  for  a  similar  reason. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  churches,  as  churches,  seem 
often  to  ignore  the  existence  of  the  public  library, 
even  when  their  members  use  it  constantly.  They 
maintain  libraries  of  their  own  in  their  Sunday- 
schools,  for  their  young  people,  and  these  libraries,  I 
am  sorry  to  say,  are  often  far  below  standard !  They 
rarely  show  interest  in  the  public  library's  collection 
of  books,  not  seeming  to  care  whether  the  library  does 
or  does  not  contain  their  own  denominational  litera- 
ture. 

There  are  some  noteworthy  exceptions.  The  Ro- 
man Catholics  are  aware  of  the  library  and  seem  to 
appreciate  its  value  as  a  publicity  agent  and  an  edu- 
cator. They  are  concerned  when  it  contains  books  of 
which  they  disapprove,  and  are  anxious  to  put  on  its 
shelves  works  that  will  interest  their  own  people.  Of 
late  they  have  published  in  several  of  our  large  cities 
lists  of  books  in  the  public  library  written  by  their 
coreligionists,  or,  for  some  reason  of  special  interest 
to  them.  These  lists  have  usually  been  prepared  with 
the  assistance  of  the  library  staff  and  paid  for  and 
distributed  either  by  a  special  committee  or  by  some 


CHURCH    ANh    LIBRARY  301 

denominational  body  such  as  the  Knights  of  Colum- 
bus. Thai  they  have  a  sympathetic  attitude  toward 
the  library  is  shown  not  only  by  these  facts,  but  by 
the  fact  that  libraries  in  several  cities,  organized  spe- 
cifically as  church  libraries,  have  been  turned  over  to 
the  local  public  library  as  branches. 

Another  religious  body  thai  appreciates  the  aid 
of  the  public  library  is  that  of  the  <  Jhristian  Scientists. 
This  Church  has  committees  specially  charged  with 
seeing  that  public  libraries  are  supplied,  free  of 
charge,  with  its  literature. 

During  the  present  Luther  anniversary  there  has 
been  some  activity  on  the  part  of  the  Lutheran 
churches  to  see  that  libraries  are  supplied  with  mate- 
rial bearing  on  their  organization  and  doctrines. 
With  these  exceptions  I  have  not  met.  during  my  li- 
brary experience  of  a  quarter  of  a  century  with  the 
slightest  interest  on  the  part  of  religious  bodies  re- 
garding the  book-collection  of  a  public  library  -either 
about  what  it  contained  or  what  it  did  not  contain. 
Occasionally,  however,  a  church  library  has  been 
transformed  into  a  public  library  branch.  In  New 
York  there  are  three  branches  that  began  their  exis- 
tence as  parish  libraries  of  Protestant  Episcopal 
churches.  Doubtless  there  arc  instances  in  other 
cities  of  which  1  have  no  knowledge. 

1  am  sure  that  more  active  cooperation  between 
the  public  library  ami  the  various  religious  bodies 
would  benefit  both  and.  through  them,  the  public,  in 
the  first  place,  the  library  should  devote  more  atten- 
tion to  its  collection  of  religious  books,  and  it  would 
do  so  if  those  interested  showed  their  interest  active- 
ly. There  is  much  material  of  great  value  to  teach- 
ers in  Sunday-schools  that  should  find  a  resting-place 
in  the  library.  In  a  town  where  there  are.  say.  a 
dozen  Sunday-schools,  it  may  be  quite  impossible  for 


302  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

each  to  buy  several  sets  of  commentaries,  concord- 
ances, works  of  travel  and  description,  &c,  but  they 
might  well  club  together  for  the  purchase  of  this  mate- 
rial and  give  it  to  the  library  or  deposit  it  there, 
where  it  would  be  at  the  service  of  all.  In  larger 
towns,  where  the  library  fund  is  greater,  united  effort 
on  the  part  of  the  churches  would  doubtless  result 
in  the  expenditure  of  part  of  the  book-money  for  this 
purpose.  Librarians  are  anxious  to  serve  the  public. 
If  they  can  be  shown  that  tin1  public  wants  books  of 
one  kind  rather  than  another  they  are  only  too  glad 
to  respond.  They  do  not  like  to  buy  books  in  the  dark, 
but  the  apparent  indifference  of  the  public  often 
forces  them  to  do  so. 

Such  works  as  these  are  of  common  interest  to 
all  Christians.  But  in  addition  every  library  ought 
to  contain  a  certain  amount  of  denominational  mate- 
rial. The  library  is  not,  except  possibly  for  some  oc- 
casional reason,  interested  in  propaganda,  but  facts 
about  the  Methodists  or  the  Baptists  are  surely  of  as 
much  value,  and  should  be  preserved  witli  as  much 
care,  as  facts  about  a  constitutional  convention  in 
Nebraska  or  the  proceedings  of  a  plumbers'  associa- 
tion in  Salem,  Mass.  Every  good  library  should  have 
one  standard  work  on  the  history  of  each  of  the  prom- 
inent religious  denominations,  especially  those  that 
are  strong  in  its  home  town.  It  should  include  the 
biographies  of  its  principal  divines  and  laymen. 
There  should  be  also  its  year-book,  renewed  annually, 
its  official  confession  of  faith  and  statement  of  organ- 
ization, its  liturgy,  if  it  has  one,  its  official  collection 
of  hymns.     Its  chief  periodical  should  be  on  tile. 

I  do  not  know  of  any  library  that  makes  a  special- 
ty of  obtaining  this  material  and  seeing  that  it  is  all 
up-to-date.  Most  librarians  would  exclaim  that  their 
meager  funds  would  not  stand  the  strain,  ami  that, 


CHURCH    AND    LIBRARY 

besides,  there  lias  never  been  The  slightest  demand  for 
such  material.  There  is  a  demand  for  all  the  latest 
novels  by  Barold  Bell  Wright,  Roberl  W.  Chambers, 
and  Marie  Corelli,  and  so  these  are  purchased.  Bere 
is  where  the  indifference  of  most  of  our  religious 
bodies  toward  what  the  library  does  or  does  not  con- 
tain is  bearing  legitimate  fruit 

I>o<s  your  public  library  contain  reference-mate- 
rial that  is  of  interest,  or  ought  to  be  of  interest,  to 
your  co-religionists?  If  not,  whose  fault  is  it'.'  Ex- 
tending our  inquiry  beyond  reference-material,  we 
may  next  assert  that  there  are  many  semipopular 
hooks  of  a  denominational  character,  sermons  by  a 
favorite  divine,  advice  to  young  people,  words  of  com- 
fort.to  those  in  trouble,  which  it  is  to  the  interest  of 
Christian  people  to  see  more  widely  read.  The  libra- 
ries will  never  waste  their  money  in  the  purchase  of 
these  if  they  are  to  remain  idly  on  the  shelves.  They 
will  buy  freely  in  response  to  a  demand.  Whose  fault 
is  it  that  the  demand  does  not  materialize? 

1  have  said  that  such  a  demand  might  easily  divert, 
part  of  the  library's  book-fund  now  devoted  to  other 
purchases.  But  tin-  churches  could  afford  to  buy 
these  hooks  and  present  them  to  the  library  if  they 
would  erase  to  duplicate  tie'  library's  work  in  direc- 
tions where  SUCh  duplication   is  useless.      Why  should 

a  Sunday-school  library  buy  stories.  for  old  or  young? 
There  was  good  reason  for  it  in  the  day,  now  far  dis- 
tant, when  the  public  library  was  non-existent  and  the 
Sunday-school  was  the  only  general  source  of  decent 
hooks.  Even  in  thai  day  the  Sunday-school  library 
largely  bought  trash— the  kind  of  wishy-washy, 
mock-pious  stuff  turned  out  by  hack-writers  at  the 
rate  of  several  volumes  per  day. 

The  rapid  rise  of  the  public  library  is  doubtless 
due,  in  part,  t<>  the  neglect  of  its  early  opportunities 


304  LI  BEAKY    ESSAYS 

by  the  Sunday-school  library.  But  no  one  can  say 
that  the  public  library  has  not  risen  to  the  occasion. 
The  very  best  part  of  its  collection,  the  most  careful- 
ly selected,  the  most  conscientiously  distributed,  is 
that  which  contains  its  books  for  children.  We  have 
schools  for  the  training  of  children's  librarians,  and 
we  give  their  graduates  special  charge  of  rooms  for 
children  in  our  library  buildings.  There  is  no  reason 
now  why  any  church  should  maintain  a  library  of  gen- 
eral literature  for  any  purpose  whatever. 

I  have  alluded  above  to  the  library's  value  as  a 
publicity  agent.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  both  the  Church 
and  the  library  are  the  greatest  and  most  valuable 
means  of  publicity  that  we  have.  Both  are  unpur- 
chasable.  Both  reach  selected  elements  of  the  com- 
munity, partly  the  same,  partly  different.  To  have 
an  event  announced  from  the  pulpit,  especially  with 
commendation,  gives  it  a  prestige  that  it  could  attain 
in  no  other  way.  Similarly,  to  have  something  pub- 
lished on  the  library's  bulletin-boards,  or  on  slips  in- 
serted in  each  circulated  book,  or  in  any  one  of  a 
dozen  ways  that  have  been  practised  by  libraries  gives 
publicity  of  high  value.  Both  the  pulpit  and  the  li- 
brary utilize  these  methods  for  themselves  and  often 
for  outside  bodies,  but  not  often  for  each  other.  It 
is  rare  for  a  clergyman  to  mention  the  public  library 
from  his  pulpit,  altho  it  is  occasionally  done.  It  is 
also  rare,  tho  not  totally  unknown,  for  a  library  to 
give  publicity  to  a  church  in  any  of  the  ways  that  are 
proper  for  this  to  be  done. 

In  particular,  every  library,  especially  in  a  small 
city  where  there  is  no  local  guide-book,  should  be  a 
repository  of  local  religious  information.  Any  one 
should  be  able,  not  only  to  ascertain  there  the  location 
of  any  particular  church,  but  to  consult  its  litera- 
ture, if  it  issues  any;  if  not,  to  find  on  file  authentic 
information  about  it  corresponding  to  that  usually 


CHURCH   AND    LIBRARY  305 

put  into  print — the  Dames  of  officers,  a  list  of  parish 
organizations,  &c.  Such  things  can  be  had  for  the 
asking,  and  there  is  usually  no  one  place  in  a  town 
where  they  are  all  assembled.  There  should  be  such 
a  place,  and  that  place  may  well  be  the  public  library. 
Large  libraries  quite  generally  collect  this  material; 
the  smaller  ones  should  follow  suit.  They  will  be  apt 
to  do  so  if  the  church  people  manifest  an  interest.  If 
the  collection  and  continual  "following  up"  of  the 
material  involve  more  work  than  the  smaller  staff  of 
the  library  can  do,  it  ought  to  be  easy  to  divide  it 
among  volunteers  from  the  different  congregations, 
this  being  the  church's  part  of  this  particular  item  of 
cooperation. 

It  is  safe  to  say  that  the  Church  and  the  public 
library  may  help  each  other  in  at  least  six  ways : 

1.  The  substitution  of  the  library's  children's  room 
for  the  Sunday-school  library  in  the  purveying  of  gen- 
eral literature. 

2.  The  more  careful  and  more  generous  provision 
of  religious  books  in  the  library,  with  increased  in- 
terest on  the  part  of  the  church  in  the  character  of 
this  part  of  the  collection. 

3.  The  offer  by  the  library  of  facilities  for  religious 
meetings. 

4.  Utilization  of  religious  gatherings  in  the  church 
to  call  attention  to  the  library  and  its  willingness  to 
aid  and  advise. 

5.  Publicity  given  in  and  by  the  library  to  the 
churches  and  their  work. 

6.  Publicity  given  in  and  by  the  Church  to  the  li- 
brary and  its  work. 

As  a  basis  on  which  cooperation  of  these  and  other 
kinds  is  to  rest  there  must  be  personal  acquaintance 
and  confidence  between  tin1  clergy  and  the  librarian. 
This  is  something  of  which  increase  will  bring  further 


306  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

increase,  as  in  the  accretions  to  a  rolling  snowball. 
For  instance,  the  pastor  of  a  church  must  have  a  cer- 
tain degree  of  confidence  in  the  librarian's  good-will 
and  ability  to  venture  to  recommend  the  purchase  of 
a  book;  the  librarian  must  have  the  same  to  be  will- 
ing to  entertain  and  act  upon  such  a  recommendation. 
Hut  the  contact  once  made,  the  book  once  bought, 
then'  is  ground  for  increased  confidence  and  acquain- 
tance and  for  additional  advice,  and  so  it  goes. 

It  will  be  noted  that  this  counsel  lays  a  greater 
burden  on  the  librarian  than  on  the  clergy.  It  is  no 
great  task  for  any  clergyman  to  make  the  acquain- 
tance of  the  librarian;  it  is  quite  another  thing  for 
the  librarian  to  do  the  same  by  each  and  every  clergy- 
man in  his  city.  Tf  the  city  is  large  and  the  clergy 
of  various  denominations  are  numbered  by  thousands, 
it  is  practically  impossible.  Recognizing  this  fact,  the 
clergy  should  take  some  steps  toward  making  collec- 
tive take  the  [dace  of  individual  acquaintance.  They 
should  invite  the  librarian  to  their  meetings  and  he  on 
his  part  should  be  ready  to  attend  and  to  address 
them  if  requested  to  do  so. 

It  should  hardly  be  necessary  to  warn  both  parties 
to  such  cooperation  as  this,  that  the  obtrusion  of  con- 
siderations of  personal  advantage,  where  this  conflicts 
with  public  service,  will  be  fatal  to  its  success.  For 
instance,  a  clergyman  who  is  preparing  an  address 
on  gome  rather  unusual  subject  must  not  expect  the 
librarian  of  a  small  city  to  expend  public  money  for 
books  which  will  aid  him,  and  him  alone,  in  his  work. 
Fortunately,  this  particular  issue  can  generally  be 
avoided,  owing  to  the  growth  of  facilities  for  inter- 
library  loans.  Altho  the  librarian  might  properly  re- 
fuse to  buy  these  particular  books,  he  won  hi  doubtless 
offer  to  attempt  to  borrow  them  from  some  larger  li- 
brary, and  this  attempt  would  have  a  good  chance  of 


CHURCH    AND    LIBRARY  307 

success,  [nterlibrary  service  of  this  kind  is  bound  to 
increase  largely  in  the  future  and  offers  a  mosl 
promising  field  for  the  rendering  of  aid  by  the  smaller 
libraries  to  the  scholar,  literary  worker,  ;in<l  investi- 
gator, including,  of  course,  the  clergyman. 

The  getting-together  of  public  library  ;m<l  church 
has  possibly  been  hampered  in  the  past  by  an  idea, 
common  i<>  both  librarian  and  clergyman,  thai  re- 
ligious bodies  and  their  work  ought  to  be  ignored  by 
all  public  bodies,  and  that  this  is  in  sonic  way  ;i  part 
of  our  American  system  of  government  and  public  ad- 
ministration. It  is.  of  course,  ;i  feature  of  that  ad- 
ministration to  treat  all  religious  bodies  with  absolute 
impartiality;  hut  that  docs  ool  involve  ignoring  their 
existence  any  more  than  treating  all  citizens  with  im- 
partiality involves  the  ignoring  of  the  individual. 
One  way  of  being  impartial,  of  course,  is  to  turn  one's 
hack  equally  upon  all,  hut  that  is  not  the  only  way. 
One  may  treat  one*s  children  alike  by  starving  all  of 
them  equally,  hut  our  idea  of  impartial  treatment 
would  he  better  satisfied  by  an  equality  of  adequate 
supplies. 

It  is  time  that  the  public  library  and  the  Church 
stopt  the  starvation  treatment  and  began  to  mete  out 
to  each  other  a  supply  of  the  aid  and  good-will  that 
each  has  at  its  disposal.  Each  has  its  fight  f<>  make 
against  the  forces  of  darkness;  neither  is  in  a  position 
to  neglect  an  ally. 


THE  FUTURE  OF  LIBRARY  WORK 

When  a  railroad  train  is  on  its  way,  its  future  his- 
tory  depends  on  which  way  it  is  heading,  on  its  speed, 

and  on  whether  its  direction  and  its  speed  will  re- 
main unchanged.  With  these  premises,  one  may  con- 
fidently predict  that  a  train  which  left  Chicago  at  a 
given  hour  on  one  day  will  reach  New  York  at  a  given 
hour  on  the  next.  Of  course,  something  may  happen 
to  slow  the  train,  or  to  wreck  it,  or  even  to  send  it 
back  to  Chicago,  in  which  cases  our  predictions  will 
come  to  naught.  This  is  what  the  weather  man  finds. 
His  predictions  are  based  on  very  similar  data.  Our 
weather  conditions  travel  usually  across  the  contin- 
ent from  west  to  cast  at  a  fairly  uniform  rate.  If 
that  rate  is  maintained,  and  the  direction  does  not 
change,  and  nothing  happens  to  dissipate  or  alter  the 
conditions,  we  can  predict  their  arrival  at  a  given 
place  with  a.  fair  degree  of  accuracy.  Those  who  rail 
at  the  weather  man's  mistakes  are  simply  finding  fault 
with  our  present  inability  to  ascertain  the  causes  that 
slow  up  storm  centers,  or  swerve  them  in  their  course, 
or  dissipate  them.  When  we  know  these  things,  and 
know  in  addition  what  starts  them,  we  can  give  up 
making  forecasts  and  write  out  a  pretty  definite 
weather  time-table — as  definite  and  as  little  subject  to 
change,  at  any  rate,  as  those  issued  by  the  railroads. 
My  business  at  this  moment  is  that  of  a  forecaster. 
We  know  just  where  and  what  the  library  situation 
is  at  present,  and  some  of  US  think  we  know  where  it 
is  headed.  If  it  should  keep  on  in  the  same  direction 
and  at  the  same  rate,  we  ought  to  be  aide  to  describe 


310  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

ir  as  it  will  be,  say,  in  1950.     Of  course,  it  may  get 

headed  in  some  other  direction.  It  may  slow  down  or 
speed  up;  it  may  melt  away  or  strike  a  rock  and  be  ir- 
recoverably wrecked.  If  1  see  any  chances  of  any  of 
these  things,  it  is  my  business  to  mention  them.  If 
my  forecast  should  turn  out  a  failure  no  one  can  prove 
it  until  1950  arrives,  and  then  I  shall  not  care. 

To  begin  with  the  necessary  preliminaries  of  our 
forecast— what  and  where  are  we  now?  I  have  said 
that  I  know;  probably  you  think  that  you  do;  but  as 
a  matter  of  fact  our  knowedge  is  neither  comprehen- 
sive nor  accurate.  We  need  a  general  library  sur- 
vey. We  have,  as  a  sort  of  statistical  framework,  tin1 
figures  now  printed  annually  in  tabular  form  in  the 
A.  L.  A.  Proceedings,  but  probably  no  one  would  main- 
tain that  these  do,  or  possibly  could,  give  an  adequate 
idea  of  the  character  or  extent  of  the  work  that  our 
libraries  are  doing.  Those  of  us  who  think  we  know 
something  of  it  have  gained  our  knowledge  by  experi- 
ence and  observation  and  neither  is  extensive  enough 
in  most  cases  to  take  the  place  of  a  well-considered 
and  properly-managed  survey  of  existing  conditions 
and  methods. 

In  default  of  a  survey,  we  must,  ;is  I  have  said, 
fall  back  upon  observation  and  experience.  I  can  cer- 
tainly claim  no  monopoly  of  these,  and  what  I  say  in 
this  regard  is,  of  course,  largely  personal.  But  it 
seems  to  me  that  the  distinguishing  marks  of  library 
work,  as  at  present  conducted,  include  the  following. 
As  you  will  see,  they  are  all  connected  and  overlap 
more  or  less.  They  are  all  growth-products.  They 
are: 

i  Size  and  expense. 

2  Socialization 

3  Professionalization. 

4  Popularization. 

5  Nationalization. 


FUTURE  OF  LIBRARY  WORK    311 

First,  library  work  in  our  country  to-day  is  large 
and  costly.  Extensively  ii  covers  a  great  territory 
and  reaches  a  huge  population.  Intensively  it  em- 
braces  a  large  variety  of  activities— many  that  on*? 
would  hesitate,  on  general  principles,  to  class  as  "li- 
brary work." 

Secondly,  a  Large  amount  of  ihis  increase  of  activ- 
ity has  been  of  a  kind  that  we  are  now  apt  to  call  "so- 
cial.'' It  deals  with  bodies  or  classes  of  people,  and  it 
tends  to  treat  these  people  as  the  direct  objects  of  the 
library's  attention,  instead  of  dealing  primarily  with 
books,  as  formerly,  and  only  indirectly  with  their 
readers.  In  fact,  the  persons  with  whom  the  library 
now  deals  may  not  be  readers  at  all,  except  potential- 
ly, as  when  they  are  users  of  clnb  or  assembly  rooms. 

Thirdly,  librarians  are  beginning  to  think  of  them- 
selves as  members  of  a  profession.  At  first  sight  this 
may  seem  to  be  a  fact  of  interest  only  to  library  work- 
ers, and  not  at  all  to  the  public.  Its  significance  maj 
appear  if  we  compare  it  to  the  emergence  of  the  mod- 
ern surgeon  with  his  professional  skill,  traditions  and 
pride,  from  the  medieval  barber  who  simply  followed 
blood-letting  as  an  avocation.  Professionalism  is  a 
symptom  of  a  great  many  things — of  achievement  and 
of  consciousness  of  it  and  pride  in  it;  of  a  desire  to 
do  teamwork  and  to  maintain  standards;  to  make 
sure  that  one's  work  is  to  be  carried  on  and  advanced 
by  worthy  successors. 

1'onrthly,  libraries  are  now  conducted  for  the 
many ;  not  for  the  few.  It  is  our  aim  to  provide  some- 
thing for  every  one  who  can  read,  no  matter  of  what 
age,  sex,  or  condition.  We  do  not.  even  limit  ourselves 
to  readers,  for  we  provide  picture  books  for  those  who 
are  too  young  to  read.  We  are  transferring  the  em- 
phasis of  our  work  from  books  to  people.  This  charac- 
teristic is  closely  connected   with   what   1    have  called 


312  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

'•socialization,'*  but  it  is  not  the  same  thing.  An  in- 
stitution may  deal  with  all  the  people  without  deal- 
ing with  them  socially  or  in  groups;  and  it  may  deal 
entirely  with  groups  without  dealing  with  everybody. 
The  library  now  does  both. 

Fifthly,  the  library  is  now  a  national  institution, 
at  least  in  the  same  sense  as  is  the  public  school.  It 
is  national  in  extent,  national  in  consciousness,  if  not 
national  in  administration.  Our  own  association  has 
played  its  part  in  this  development;  the  present  war 
has  given  it  a  great  stimulus.  Those  who  see  no  na- 
tionalism without  complete  centralization  and  who 
say  that  we  are  not  yet  a  nation  because  all  our  gov- 
ernmental powers  are  not  centered  at  Washington, 
will  doubtless  deny  the  nationalization  of  the  library. 
They  take  too  narrow  a  view. 

We  may  now  combine  two  or  more  lines  of  in- 
quiry. In  what  direction  is  the  library  moving  in  each 
of  these  respects?  Is  it  speeding  or  slowing  up?  Is 
there  any  reason  to  look  for  speeding  or  slowing  up  in 
the  future? 

As  regards  size  and  cost,  our  development  has  been 
swift.  We  cannot,  it  seems  to  me,  keep  up  the  rate. 
Twenty  years  ago  the  institutions  now  constituting 
the  New  York  Public  Library  circulated  a  million 
books.  They  now  circulate  ten  million.  Does  anyone 
believe  that  twenty  years  hence  they  will  circulate  one 
hundred  million?  There  must  be  further  increase,  be- 
cause we  are  not  now  reaching  every  person  and  every 
class  in  the  community,  but  it  will  not  and  cannot  be 
a  mere  increase  of  quantity.  We  must  do  our  work 
better  and  make  every  item  and  element  in  it  tell. 
We  must  substitute  one  book  well  read  for  ten  books 
skimmed.  In  place  of  ten  worthless  books  we  must  put 
one  that  is  worth  while.  There  are  already  signs  of 
this  substitution  of  quality  for  quantity  in  our  ideals. 


FUTURE   OF    LIBRARY    WORK  313 

Extension,  as  opposed  to  intrusion,  has  appealed 
to  many  enthusiastic  librarians  as  "missionary  work." 
Perhaps  the  term  is  well  chosen.  Some  of  it  is  akin 
to  the  missionary  fervor  that  sends  funds  to  convert. 
the  distant  heathen  when  nominal  Christians  around 
the  corner  are  vainly  demanding  succor,  material, 
mental  and  spiritual.  We  have  too  much  of  this  in 
the  library;  attempts  to  form  hoys'  clubs  with  arti- 
ficial aims  and  qualifications  when  clubs  already 
formed  to  promote  objects  that  are  very  real  in  the 
members'  minds  are  ignored  <>r  neglected;  the  provi- 
sion of  boresome  talks  on  "Rubber-culture  in  Peru" 
and  on  "How  I  climbed  Long's  Peak,"  when  members 
of  the  community  would  be  genuinely  interested  in 
hearing  an  expert  explain  the  income  tax;  the  pur- 
chase of  new  books  that  nobody  wants  when  an  insist- 
ent demand  for  old  standards  of  sterling  worth  has 
never  been  adequately  met;  all  sorts  of  forcing  from 
the  outside  instead  of  developing  from  the  inside. 
This  kind  of  thing,  like  charity,  begins  properly  at 
home,  and  the  real  missionary  takes  care  to  set  his 
own  house  in  order  before  he  j^oes  far  afield — to  fill 
the  nearby  demand,  when  it  is  good,  before  attempting 
to  force  something  on  those  who  do  not  want  it. 

It  is  in  this  direction  thai  our  promise  of  con- 
tinued progress  lies  when  we  cannot,  see  grounds  for 
expecting  great  future  increase  of  income. 

This  leads  us  naturally  to  discuss  what  I  have 
called  our  socialization,  which  is  just  beginning.  It 
is  running  strong,  but  there  is  room  for  a  long  course, 
and  that  course.  I  believe,  it  will  take.  In  the  first 
place,  we  are  functioning  more  and  more  as  commun- 
ity centers,  but.  there  is  enormous  room  for  advance. 
We  are  straggling  all  along  the  line,  which  is  one 
sign  of  an  early  stage.  Some  of  us  have  not  yet 
awakened  to  the  fact   that   we  are  destined  to  play  a 


314  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

great  part  in  community  development  and  commun- 
ity education.  Others  are  reluctantly  yielding  to 
pressure.  Others  have  gone  so  fast  that  they  are  in 
advance  of  their  communities.  Take,  if  you  please, 
the  one  item  of  the  provision  of  space  for  community 
meetings,  regarded  by  some  as  the  be-all  and  the  end- 
all  of  the  community  center  idea.  It  is  really  but  one 
element,  but  it  may  serve  as  a  straw  to  show  which 
way  the  wind  blows.  Some  libraries  are  giving  no 
space  for  this  purpose;  some  give  it  grudgingly,  with 
all  sorts  of  limitations;  others  give  quite  free- 
ly. None  of  us  give  with  perfect  freedom.  I 
suppose  we  in  St.  Louis  are  as  free  as  any.  In  15  as- 
sembly and  clubrooms  we  house  4,000  meetings  yearly. 
Our  only  limitations  are  order  and  the  absence  of  an 
admission  fee.  I  incline  to  think  that  the  maintenance 
of  order  should  be  the  only  condition.  If  an  admission 
fee  is  charged,  part  of  it  should  go  to  the  library,  to 
be  devoted  to  caring  for  the  assembly  and  clubrooms 
and  improving  them.  There  are  many  community 
gatherings  that  can  be  best  administered  on  the  plan 
of  a  paid  admission.  These  ought  not  to  be  excluded. 
Most  of  our  restrictions  are  simply  exhibits  of  our 
reluctance  to  place  ourselves  at  the  complete  social 
disposal  of  the  community.  A  community  is  not  a 
community  unless  it  has  political  and  religious  in- 
terests. If  we  are  going  to  become  socialized  at  all, 
why  balk  at  these  any  more  than  we  should  exclude 
from  our  shelves  books  on  politics  and  religion?  I 
look  to  see  socialization,  in  this  and  other  directions, 
proceed  to  such  lengths  that  the  older  library  ideals 
may  have  to  go  entirely  by  the  board.  Some  of  them 
are  tottering  now.  I  have  said  that  I  consider  this 
matter  of  the  use  of  assembly  rooms  only  one  item  in 
what  I  have  called  socialization.  It  may  all  be  summed 


FUTURE   OF    LIBRARY    WORK  :u:> 

up  by  saying  that  we  are  coming  to  consider  the  libra- 
ry somewhat  in  the  lijjlit  of  a  community  club,  of 
which  all  well-behaved  citizens  are  members.  Our 
buildings  arc  clubhouses,  with  books  ami  magazines, 

meeting  rooms,  toilet  facilities,  kitchens — almost 
everything,  in  fact,  that  a  good,  small  club  would  con- 
tain. If  you  say  "then  they  have  ceased  to  be  libra- 
ries and  are  something  else,"  that  does  not  affect  in'- 
any  more  than  when  you  show  that  we  are  no  longer 
speaking  Chaucer's  language  or  wearing  the  clothes 
of  Alfred  the  Great. 

When  we  were  trying  to  explain  to  the  architects 
of  the  New  York  branch  buildings  exactly  what  we 
wanted  in  those  structures  and  met  with  the  usual 
misconception  based  on  medieval  ideas  of  a  library, 
one  of  the  most  eminent  architects  in  the  United 
States  suddenly  sat  up  and  took  notice.  "Why,  these 
buildings  are  not  to  be  libraries  at  all,"  he  said,  "they 
are  to  be  reading  clubs."  He  had  learned  in  a  few 
minutes  what  many  of  us  still  see-  through  a  glass 
darkly. 

An  even  more  important  manifestation  of  what  I 
have  called  socialization  is  the  extension  of  occupa- 
tion groups  to  which  the  library  is  giving  special  at- 
tention and  special  service.  The  library  has  always 
had  in  mind  one  or  more  of  these  groups.  Once  it. 
catered  almost  entirely  to  a  group  of  scholars,  at  first 
belonging  predominantly  to  the  clergy.  In  later  years 
it  added  the  teachers  in  schools  and  their  pupils,  also 
the  children  of  the  community.  These  are  definite 
groups,  and  their  recognition  in  the  rendition  of  ser- 
vice is  a  social  act.  Other  groups  are  now  being  ad- 
ded with  rapidity,  and  we  are  recognizing  in  our  ser- 
vice industrial  workers,  business  men,  artists  of  var- 
ious kinds,  musicians  and  so  on.     The  recognition  of 


31G  LIBEARY    ESSAYS 

new  groups  and  the  extension  of  definite  library  ser- 
vice to  them  is  progress  in  socialization,  and  it  is  go- 
ing on  steadily  at  the  present  time. 

Just  now  the  most  conspicuous  group  that  we  are 
taking  in  is  that  of  business  men.  In  adjusting  our 
resources  and  methods  to  the  needs  of  this  group  we 
are  (hanging  our  whole  conception  of  the  scope  of  a 
library's  collection.  As  Mr.  Dana  has  pointed  out, 
we  now  collect,  preserve  and  distribute  not  books 
alone,  but  printed  matter  of  all  kinds,  and  in  addition 
records  of  other  types,  such  as  manuscripts,  pictures, 
slides,  films,  phonograph  discs  and  piano  rolls.  Some 
of  these  of  course  are  needed  to  adapt  our  collection 
to  others  than  the  business  group — to  educators,  art- 
ists or  musicians.  We  shall  doubtless  continue  to  dis- 
cover new  groups  and  undergo  change  in  the  course  of 
adaptation  to  their  needs. 

The  recognition  of  special  groups  and  the  effort  to 
do  them  service  has  proceeded  to  a  certain  extent  out- 
side the  pubic  library,  owing  to  the  slowness  of  its  re- 
action to  this  particular  need.  The  result  has  been 
the  special  library.  I  am  one  of  those  who  are  sorry 
that  the  neglect  of  its  opportunity  by  the  public  libra- 
ry has  brought  this  about,  and  I  hope  for  a  reduction 
in  the  number  of  independent  special  libraries  by  a 
process  of  gradual  absorption  and  consolidation.  The 
recent  acquisition  of  some  formerly  independent  mu- 
nicipal reference  libraries  by  the  local  libraries  is  a 
case  in  point.  There  must  always  be  special  libraries. 
The  library  business  of  independent  industrial  and 
commercial  institutions  is  best  cared  for  in  this  way. 
But  every  group  that  is  merely  a  section  of  the  gen- 
eral public,  set  apart  from  the  rest  by  special  needs 
and  tastes,  may  be  cared  for  most  economically  by  the 
public  library.  If  its  service  is  not  adapted  to  give 
such  care,  rapid  and  efficient  adjustment  is  called  for. 


FUTCIJI-:    OF    LinUARV    WORK  317 

In  a  library  forecast  made  several  years  ago,  Mr. 
John  C.  Dana  state*]  his  opinion  thai  the  library,  as 
if  is,  "an  unimportant  by-product,"  is  to  be  of  im- 
portance in  the  future,  but  will  then  have  departed 
from  the  "present  prevailing  type."  Without  neces- 
sarily agreeing  to  our  present  insignificance,  we  may 
well  accept,  I  think,  this  forecast  of  future  growth 
and  change. 

Professionalization,  too,  has  by  DO  means  reached 
its  limit.  As  has  been  pointed  out,  it  is  a  sympton, 
rather  than  the  thing  itself.  It  is  like  a  man's  clothes, 
by  which  yon  can  often  trace  the  growth  or  decay  of 
his  self-respect  Pride  in  one's  work  and  a  tendency 
to  exalt  it  is  a  healthy  sign,  provided  there  is  some- 
thing back  of  it.  The  formation  of  staff  associations 
like  that  recently  organized  in  New  York  is  a  good 
sign,  so  is  the  multiplication  of  professional  bodies. 
The  establishment  of  the  A.  L.  A.  in  1876  was  the  be- 
ginning of  the  whole  library  advance  in  this  country. 
It  was  only  a  symptom,  of  course,  but  with  the  healthy 
growth  of  libraries  I  look  for  more  si^ns  of  our  pride 
in  what  wo  are  doing,  of  our  unwillingness  to  lower 
it  or  to  alter  its  ideals. 

The  familiar  question,  "Is  librarianship  a  profes- 
sion?" reduces  to  a  matter  of  definition.  We  are  b  ■- 
ing  professionalized  for  the  purposes  of  this  discus- 
sion if  we  are  growing  sufficiently  in  group  conscious- 
ness  to  let  it  react  favorably  on  our  work. 

One  of  the  earliest  developments  of  a  feeling  of 
professional  pride  in  one's  work  is  an  insistence  on 
the  adequate  training  of  the  workers  and  on  the  estab- 
lishment of  standards  of  efficiency  both  for  workers 
and  work.  Here  belongs  a  forecast  not  only  of  li- 
brary school  training,  but  of  official  inspection  and 
certification,  of  systems  of  service,  etc.  Standardiza- 
tion of  this  kind  is  on  the  increase  and  is  bound  to  b  ! 


318  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

enforced  with  greater  strictness  in  the  future.  In  our 
professional  training  as  in  other  professions  the  ten- 
dency is  toward  specialization.  With  us,  this  special- 
ization will  doubtless  proceed  on  the  lines  of  facilities 
for  practice.  An  engineering  school  cannot  turn  out 
electrical  engineers  if  the  only  laboratories  that  it 
lias  arc  devoted  to  civil  and  mechanical  engineering. 
A  specialist  in  abdominal  surgery  is  not  produced  by 
experience  in  a  contagious  disease  ward.  Similarly 
we  ought  not  to  expect  a  school  remote  from  public 
library  facilities  to  specialize  in  public  library 
work,  or  a  school  in  close  connection  with  a 
public  library  to  produce  assistants  for  the  work  of 
a  university  library.  Increasing  professional  spirit 
among  us  will  demand  specialization  according  to 
equipment. 

Popularization,  some  may  think,  has  already  gone 
to  the  limit,  How  can  we  be  more  of  the  people  than 
we  are  to-day?  Are  we  not,  in  sooth,  a  little  too  dem- 
ocratic, perhaps?  Personally  I  feel  that  a  good  deal 
of  the  library's  social  democracy  is  on  the  surface. 
Any  member  of  a  privileged  class  will  assure  you  that 
his  own  class  constitutes  "the  people"  and  that  the 
rest  do  not  matter.  The  Athenians  honestly 
thought  that  their  country  was  a  democracy,  when 
it  was  really  an  oligarchy  of  the  most  limited  kind. 
England  honestly  thought  she  had  "popular"  govern- 
ment when  those  entitled  to  vote  were  a  very  small 
part  of  the  population.  A  library  in  a  city  of  half  a 
million  inhabitants  honestly  thinks  that  a  record  of 
100,000  cardholders  entitles  it  to  boast  that  its  use 
extends  to  the  whole  population.  We  cannot  say  that 
we  reach  tin1  whole  number  of  citizens  until  we  really 
do  reach  them.  The  school  authorities  can  go  out  to 
the  highways  and  hedges  and  compel  them  to  come  in  ; 
we  cannot,     Herein  doubtless  lies  one  of  our  advan- 


FUTURE   OF    LIBRARY    WORK  319 

tages.     Our  buildings  arc  filled  with  willing  m 
It  is  our  business  to  universalize  the  desire  to  read  as 

the  schools  arc  universalizing  the  ability.  But  we  have 
not  yet  done  so,  and  popularization  proceeds  slowly. 
I  cannol  say  that  I  sec  many  indications  of  speeding 
up  in  the  rate,  although  our  increase  in  the  recogni- 
tion of  groups,  noted  above,  may  have  an  influence 
here  in  future.  As  groups  develop  among  that  part 
of  the  population  that  uses  the  library  least,  our  op- 
portunity to  extend  our  influence  over  that  pari  will 
present  itself.  One  such  group  is  ready  for  us  hut  we 
have  never  reached  it — that  of  union  labor.  The  rec- 
ognition of  the  unions  by  the  library  and  of  the  libra- 
ry by  the  unions  has  been  unaccountably  delayed, 
despite  sporadic,  well-meant,  but •  ineffective  efforts 
on  hoth  sides.  No  more  important  step  for  tie-  intel- 
lectual future  of  the  community  can  he  taken  than 
this  extension  of  service. 

Nationalization  has  just  begun.  It  is  speeding  up 
and  will  go  far,  I  am  sure,  in  the  next  twenty  years. 
Our  libraries  are  getting  used  to  acting  as  a  unit.  We 
should  not  like  administrative  nationalization  and  I 
see  no  signs  of  it;  hut  nationalization  in  the  sense  uf 
improved  opportunities  for  team  work  and  greater 
willingness  to  avail  ourselves  of  them  we  shall  gel  in 
increasing  measure.  For  instance,  one  of  our  great- 
est opportunities  lies  before  us  in  the  inter-library 
loan.  It  knocks  at  our  door,  hut  we  do  not  heed  i!  he- 
cause  in  this  respect  we  have  not  begun  yet  to  think 
nationally.  Rut  having  begun  national  servio 
various  activities  brought  to  the  front  by  the  war.  we 
shall  not,  I  am  sure,  lag  behind  much  longer.  Tie'  na- 
tional organization  of  the  A.  1,.  A.  has  long  provided 
us  witli  a  framework  on  which  to  build  our  national 
thoughts  and  our  national  deeds,  hut  hitherto  it  has 
remained  a  mere  scaffolding,  conspicuous  through  the 


320  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

absence  of  any  corresponding  structure.  The  war  is 
teaching  us  both  to  think  and  to  act  nationally,  and 
after  it  is  over  I  shall  be  astonished  if  we  are  longer 
content  to  do  each  his  own  work.  Our  work  is  nation- 
wide, in  peace  as  in  war  and  our  tardy  realization  of 
this  fact  may  be  one  of  the  satisfactory  by-products 
of  this  world  conflict. 

Now  it  is  not  beyond  the  possibilities  that  the  li- 
brary movement,  headed  right  and  running  free,  may 
still  fall  because  it  meets  some  obstacle  and  goes  to 
pieces.  Are  there  any  such  in  sight?  I  seem  to  see 
several,  but  I  believe  that  we  can  steer  clear.  If  we 
split  on  anything  it  will  be  on  an  unseen  rock,  and  of 
such,  of  course,  we  can  say  nothing. 

One  rock  is  political  interference.  The  library 
has  had  trouble  with  it  of  old  and  some  of  us  are  still 
struggling  with  it.  It  is  assumed  by  those  who  put 
their  trust  in  paper  civil  service  that  it  has  now  been 
minimized.  This  overlooks  the  undoubted  fact  that 
in  a  great  number  of  cases  the  civil  service  machinery 
has  been  captured  by  politicians,  and  now  works  to 
aid  them,  not  to  control  them.  The  greatest  danger 
of  political  interference  in  public  libraries,  now  lies 
in  well-meant  efforts  to  turn  them  over  to  some  local 
commission  established  to  further  the  merit  system, 
but  actually  working  in  harmony  with  a  political  ma- 
chine. 

Another  rock  on  which  we  may  possibly  split  is 
that  of  formalism.  Machinery  must  be  continually 
scrapped  and  replaced  if  progress  is  to  be  made.  It 
will  not  grow  and  change  like  an  organism.  The  li- 
brary itself  is  subject  to  organic  growth  and  change, 
but  its  machinery  will  not  change  automatically  with 
it.  If  we  foster  in  any  way  an  idea  that  our  machin- 
ery is  sacred,  that  it  is  of  permanent  value  and  that 
conditions  should  conform  to  it  instead  of  its  con- 


FUTUBE   OF    LIBBABY    WOBK  321 

forming  to  them,  our  whole  progress  may  come  to  an 

end.  1  have  called  this  a  rock,  hut  it  is  ratlin-  a  sort 
of  Sargasso  Sea  where  the  library  may  whirl  about  in 
an  eternity  (if  seaweed. 

Another  obstacle,  somewhat  allied  i<>  this  of  for- 
malism, is  the  "big  bead" — none  the  less  dangerous 
because  it  is  common  and  as  detrimental  to  an  insti- 
tution as  it.  is  to  an  individual.  -lust  as  soon  as  a 
person,  or  an  institution,  sits  down  and  begins  t«>  ap- 
preciate himself  or  itself,  to  take  Mock  of  the  ser- 
vices he  or  it  is  rendering  the  community,  to  wonder 
at  their  extent  and  value,  those  services  are  in  a  rail- 
way to  become  valueless.  The  proper  attitude  is  rath- 
er that  of  investigation  to  discover  further  possible 
kinds  of  service,  with  the  exercise  of  ingenuity  in  de- 
vising ways  to  render  them  effectively. 

We  have  occasionally  been  accused  of  taking  the 
attitude  of  self-laudation,  but  1  really  do  not  think 
there  is  great  danger  of  an  epidemic  of  this  malady. 
We  do  not  receive  enough  encouragement.  Once  in  a 
while,  to  be  sure,  someone  tells  us,  or  tells  the  public, 
what  a  great  and  valuable  institution  the  public  libra- 
ry is  but  the  treatment  that  we  receive  is  generally 
mildly  humorous  when  it  is  not  characterized  by 
downright  indifference  and  neglect.  Whenever  a  book 
comes  into  my  hands  telling  of  some  movement  in 
which  1  know  that  the  library  has  borne  an  honorable 
part  I  always  turn  first  to  the  index  and  search  for 
recognition  under  the  letter  L.  Generally  it  is  not 
there;  when  it  is,  it  is  almost  always  inadequate.  If 
we  are  attacked  by  the  "big  head,"  it  will  have  to  be 
a  case  of  auto-intoxication. 

Exploitation  is  another  possible  POCk.  I  have  al- 
ready alluded  to  the  danger  of  capture  by  a  political 
machine,  but  there  are  other  interests  more  subtle 
and  quite  as  dangerous.      Many  a   useful   institution, 


322  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

intended  to  be  nonpartisan,  has  been  captured  and 
used  by  some  interest  or  other  while  remaining  non- 
partisan on  the  surface.  Our  safety,  so  far,  has  re- 
sided in  the  inability  of  most  interests  to  see  that  we 
are  worth  capture.  When  the  drive  comes,  as  I  be- 
lieve it  will,  our  continued  safety  will  lie,  not  in  re- 
sistance, but  in  an  equal  yielding  to  all — a  willingness 
to  act  as  the  agent  for  all  isms,  religious,  economic, 
political  and  industrial  without  exalting  one  above 
another  or  emphasizing  one  at  another's  expense. 
Something  of  this  we  are  already  doing,  and  in  so  far 
as  we  succeed  in  it  we  are  placing  ourselves  in  a  posi- 
tion of  vantage  from  which  it  will  be  very  difficult  to 
dislodge  us. 

Assuming  the  truth  of  all  this — and  it  is  some- 
thing of  an  assumption,  I  grant  you — what  then,  is 
our  library  of  1950  to  be?  An  institution  not  very 
much  larger  or  more  expensively  operated  than  our 
present  maximum,  although  with  a  higher  minimum, 
carried  on  with  a  more  careful  eye  to  economy  and 
watching  more  jealously  the  quality  of  its  output.  It 
will  have  two  units  of  service,  as  at  present,  the  book 
and  the  citizen,  but  it  will  tend  to  regard  the  latter 
as  primary,  rather  than  the  former  and  will  shrink 
from  no  form  of  service  that  it  can  render  him.  The 
higher  quality  of  its  work  will  be  reflected  in  the 
greater  pride  of  the  worker — in  a  spirit  of  profession- 
alism that  will  insist  on  adequate  training  and  proper 
compensation  and  possibly  will  use  organization  to 
enforce  these  ideals.  It  will  reach  out  somewhat  fur- 
ther among  the  people  than  it  does  now,  although  not 
so  much  that  the  difference  will  be  notable.  Finally 
the  teamwork  between  different  libraries  will  be  more 
frequent  and  effective,  assistants  will  be  exchanged 
freely,  readers'  cards  used  interchangeably  and  inter- 
library  loans  will  take  place  easily  ami  often. 


FUTURE    OF    LIBRARY    WORK  323 

What  effect  will  these  changes  have  on  the  desir- 
ability of  library  work  as  a   profession?     The  only 

conclusion  can  be  that  it  will  be  greatly  increased. 
By  this  1  mean  that  it  will  be  more  interesting,  more 
likely  to  give  pleasure  to  the  worker  as  a  by-product. 
I  do  not  mean  that  it  will  necessarily  pay  very  much 
better.  The  most  interesting  and  pleasurable  occupa- 
tions are  generally,  I  think,  those  thai  do  not  pay  well 
in  money.  ( )ne  should  not  expect  lull  payment  in  both 
cash  and  pleasure.  The  exception  is  where  the  acqui- 
sition of  money  is  itself  the  feature  of  the  occupa- 
tion that  gives  the  pleasure.  I  do  not  quarrel  with 
those  who  pursue  this  form  of  pleasure,  but  they  cer- 
tainly have  no  business  to  be  librarians  or  teachers, 
or  artists  or  authors,  or  to  engage  in  any  occupation 
which  in  itself  constitutes  to  the  worker  the  fullness 
of  life  and  its  illumination.  The  library  profession 
will  make  its  appeal  in  1950,  as  it  does  today,  to  men 
and  women  who  like  to  work  with  and  among  and 
through  books;  who  also  like  to  work  with  and  among 
and  through  people;  who  enjoy  watching  the  inter- 
play of  relations  between  the  man  and  the  hook  and 
using  them  for  the  advancement  of  civilization.  This 
is  an  intellectual  and  spiritual  appeal,  and  it  is  not 
likely  to  be  replaced  by  that  which  glitters  on  the 
metallic  face  of  the  dollar. 

In  taking  leave  of  our  subject  we  may  go  back  to 
our  opening  simile  of  the  railroad  train.  The  flier 
that  reaches  New  York  is  the  same  train  that  left 
Chicago;  its  passengers  have  not  greatly  changed,  and 
jet  its  environment  is  wholly  different,  so  that  the 
outlook  of  those  within  it  has  totally  altered.  It.  is 
in  some  such  fashion  that  the  library  of  L950  will  dif- 
fer from  that  of  today.  It  will  be  the  same  institu- 
tion with  the  same  staff,  but  it  will  have  traveled  far 
on  the  rails  of  time.     Its  environment,  its  outlook  will 


324  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

be  different,  and  in  its  response  to  that  variation  it 
musi  needs  do  different  things  and  render  a  different 
service.  May  its  motive  power  never  fail,  its  machin- 
ery he  kept  well  oiled,  and  the  crew  maintain  their 
strength,  intelligence  and  sanity! 


POPULARIZING   MUSIC  THROUGH  THE 
LIBRARY* 

The  purchase  of  music  by  a  public  library  is  jus- 
tified by  the  assumption  that  its  use  is  to  be  some- 
what analogous  to  that  of  printed  speech.  The  an- 
alogy  is,  in  fact,  somewhat  closer  than  most  persons 
realize,  and  its  consideration  reveals  some  mistaken 
ideas  about,  the  use  of  music  in  a  library  and  may 
give  rise  to  suggestions  for  the  improvement  of  that 
use.  A  page  of  music,  like  a  page  of  written  lan- 
guage, is  a  record  of  something  whose  primary  ex- 
pression is  obtained  through  sound.  Anyone  who 
understands  the  notation  in  either  case  may  repro- 
duce the  sounds.  Tn  one  case  this  is  "reading 
aloud'*;  in  the  other  it  is  a  performance  of  the  music. 
In  the  case  of  the  music  the  sounds  may  be  made 
with  the  voice,  or  with  an  instrument  or  with  one 
or  several  of  both  at  once,  but  this  is  only  an  appar- 
ent complication  and  does  not  affect  the  principle. 
The  reader,  of  course,  may  learn  the  language,  or 
the  music,  by  heart  and  then  dispense  with  the  writ- 
ten record.  In  practise  there  are  important  differ- 
ences between  the  treatment  of  records  of  speech 
and  music.  As  sound  is  readily  imagined  as  well 
as  actually  produced,  both  speech  and  music  may 
be  enjoyed  by  a  reader  without  making  a  sound.  If 
the  reader  of  a  hook  cannot  do  this,  he  is  not  re- 
garded as  at  all  skilled.  Most  ,,1'  us.  J  think,  do  not 
consider  that  ;i  person  knows  completely  how  to 
read  when   he  is  not.  able   t<>   read   "to   himself",   hut 

*  Read  before  the  National  on  of  Musi.-  Teachers  and  re- 

printed from  tin-  published  Proceedings  for  1918. 


o26  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

finds  it  necessary  to  make  the  actual  sounds  of 
speech,  whether  loudly,  or  only  under  his  breath. 
In  the  case  of  music,  however,  only  the  skilled  mu- 
sician, as  a  general  thing,  is  able  to  read  a  page  of 
music  "to  himself",  as  he  would  read  a  page  of  writ- 
ten language.  This  is  especially  the  case  with  in- 
strumental music  and  with  music  where  there  are 
several  parts.  An  accomplished  musician,  however, 
may  run  over  an  orchestral  score  and  hear  the  per- 
formance "in  his  mind",  with  the  quality  of  each 
instrument  brought  out,  the  harmonies  and  the 
shading  of  intensity. 

We  may  go  a  step  further  as  a  matter  of  curious 
interest.  Language  is  not  necessarily  connected 
with  sounds  at  all.  A  deaf  mute,  who  has  never 
heard  a  sound,  and  is  incapable  of  understanding 
what  sound  is,  may  nevertheless  learn  to  read.  He 
is,  however  unable  to  appreciate  a  page  of  written 
music,  and  I  do  not  know  how  it  would  be  possible 
to  explain  to  him  what  it  is  like,  except  the  rhythm 
of  it,  which  may  be  made  to  appeal  to  the  senses 
of  sight  and  touch,  as  well  as  to  that  of  sound.  In 
general,  however,  the  reader  of  music  must  at  least 
imagine  the  sounds  represented  by  the  notation  be- 
fore him.  This  is  not  the  case  with  the  reader  of 
speech.  Anyone  who  can  read  fast  and  well  enough 
may,  like  the  deaf  mute,  understand  what  he  reads 
without  even  imaging  the  sound  of  the  words.  One 
may  even  read  so  fast  that  the  mere  speed  forbids 
any  thought  of  the  corresponding  oral  language. 
Skilled  readers  may  take  in  a  sentence,  a  para- 
graph, almost  a  page,  at  a  glance.  This  is  the  sole 
point  of  difference  between  reading  language  and 
reading  music;  and  it  does  not  greatly  concern  us 
here  because  all  that  it  practically  affects  is  speed 
of  appreciation. 


POPULARIZING    MUSK  'S'27 

Something  that  is  of  greater  importance  is  the 
difference  of  purpose  usually  found  between  those 
who  read  words  and  those  who  read  musical  notes. 
When   we  say  of  a  child  that  he  is  studying  music 

we  usually  mean  that  lie  is  learning  how  to  sing 
or  to  play  on  some  instrument  with  the  special  view 
of  being  able  to  perform  before  some  kind  of  aud- 
ienee.  A  musie-teaeher  in  like  manner  is  one  who 
teaches  his  pupils  how  to  play  on  the  piano  or  the 
violin,   or   how    to   sing. 

But  when  we  teach  a  child  to  read  we  are  nor. 
primarily  concerned  with  his  future  ability  \<>  read 
aloud  or  to  recite  so  as  to  give  pleasure  to  an  aud- 
ience, what  we  are  thinking  of  is  his  ability  to  read 
rapidly  to  himself  so  as  to  understand  what  is  in 
books.  Looked  at  in  the  same  way  the  main  thing 
in  musical  instruction  would  be  to  teach  rapid 
sight-reading  so  that  the  reader  should  get  the  abil- 
ity to  become  acquainted  with  as  large  a  number  of 
musical  masterpieces  as  possible.  One  learns  to 
talk  by  talking;  one  learns  to  read  by  reading;  and 
the  same  is  true  of  reading  music.  And  as  the  om- 
nivorous reader  of  books  always  wants  to  express 
his  own  thoughts  in  writing,  so  the  omnivorous 
reader  of  music  will  want  to  compose.  Neither  the 
one  nor  the  other  may  produce  anything  great,  but 
the  effort  will  aid  in  mental  development.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  the  child  begins  to  put  his  thoughts 
into  words  before  he  knows  how  to  lead.  lie  is 
encouraged  to  do  so.  No  mother  ever  tried  to  stop 
her  baby  from  learning  to  talk  because  its  first  ef- 
forts were  feeble,  halting  and  unintelligible.  How 
different  h  we  treat  the  child's  attempts  at  musical 
expression — for  that  is  the  explanation  of  many  of 
the  crude  baity  noises  that  we  hear.  As  the  child 
grows,  its  expression  in  this  direction  is  discouraged, 


:\-2S  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

and  seldom  is  any  effort  made  at  encouragement  or 
development.  Is  it  not  a  wonder  that  anyone  suc- 
ceeds in  composing  original  music?  How  many  great 
poets  or  novelists  should  we  have  if  every  baby 
were  discouraged  in  its  efforts  to  express  itself  in 
words;  if  it  were  never  taught  to  talk  and  never 
to  read? 

By  the  time  we  librarians  are  able  to  exert  an 
influence  on  the  reader,  this  period  is  past,  but  it 
is  still  possible  to  do  something.  Our  first  job  is 
to  disabuse  the  public  of  the  idea,  that  enjoyment 
of  music  has  necessarily  something  to  do  with  mas- 
tering the  technique  of  some  musical  instrument. 
The  phonograph  has  done  good  work  in  removing 
this  impression,  but  we  should  never  be  content 
with  the  phonograph  any  more  than  we  should  con- 
sent to  do  away  with  all  printed  books  and  rely 
wholly  on  works  "read  aloud"'  on  the  victrola.  There 
will  always  be  pleasure  and  profit  in  doing  one's 
own  reading,  whether  in  speech  or  in  music.  One 
must  understand  musical  notation  of  course,  just 
as  one  must  know  the  notation  of  written  speech 
before  he  can  read  books.  He  must  also  understand 
a  little  of  some  instrument,  preferably  the  piano; 
though  only  enough  for  sight-reading,  his  object  be- 
ing to  understand  and  appreciate  the  music  him- 
self, not  necessarily  to  bring  understanding  and 
appreciation   to  others. 

I  think  I  have  gone  far  enough  along  this  train 
of  thought  to  show  the  principle  on  which  I  should 
select  the  music  for  a  public  library  collection.  I 
should  form  such  a  collection  in  precisely  the  same 
way  as  my  collection  of  books.  A  very  large  pro- 
portion of  the  books  in  a  public  library  are  proper- 
ly intended  for  those  who  will  read  them  for  their 
own    delectation,     enjoying    and    appreciating    and 


POPULARIZING    MUSIC  329 

profiting  personally  by  what    they    read.     A    much 
smaller  proportion  arc  books  for  study  and  research. 
A   still  smaller  number  arc  dramatic  or  other  se- 
lections intended   principally  for  recitation  or  dec- 
lamation.    So,   in   selecting   my   music    I    would   ac- 
quire chiefly  selections  for  reading.     I  do  not  mean 
elementary    reading — one    does     not      limit     liis     lan- 
guage books  to  primers.     I  should  buy  works  of  all 
grades   of   difficulty,    but    I    should    have   always   in 
mind  the  primary   use  of  these  for  sight    reading. 
Comparatively    few    would    he    pieces    written    solely 
for  display— to   dazzle   the   hearer   or   to   show    off 
technique.     Few  would   he  pieces  whose   interest    is 
Chiefly  historical  or  academic.        I   do  not  say  tiiat    I 
should  exclude  either  of  these  kinds,  but   I  certainly 
should  not  include  them   in   greater  degree  than    I 
should  include  analogous  material  in  buying  ordin- 
ary books.     Hear  in  mind  also  that    [   am   speaking 
of  an  ordinary  public   library,  of  average  size,   not 
of  a  university  library  nor  that   of  a   music  school; 
nor  a  public  library  so  Large  that   it  may  properly 
have  some  of  the  functions  of  both  of  these. 

Just  as  it  is  a  conspicuous  duty  of  the  library 
to  raise  and  maintain  the  level  of  literary  taste 
in  its  community  and  to  keep  this  fact  in  mind  in 
the  selection  of  its  books,  so  it  is  the  business  of 
its  musical  collection  to  raise  and  maintain  the 
level   of   musical    taste. 

My  own  opinion,  which  some  may  regard  as 
heretical,  is  that  taste  can  not  be  cultivated,  in  lit- 
erature, or  art,  or  music,  to  any  considerable  ex- 
tent by  study.  The  study  of  these  things  must 
have  to  do  largely  with  history  and  technique,  and 
while  a  knowledge  of  these  is  desirable  it  can  not. 
affect  taste,  although  we  may  imagine  that  it  does. 
We   may   reduce   this   matter   to    its   lowest    terms   by 


330  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

thinking  for  a  moment  of  something  that  depends 
on  the  uncomplicated  action  of  an  elementary  sense 
— physical  t;ist<*.  If  one  does  not  like  an  olive  when 
he  eats  one  for  the  first  time,  that  judgment  can 
not  be  reversed  by  studying  the  history  of  olive  cul- 
ture. If  he  dislikes  cheese,  it  will  be  useless  to 
take  him  Into  a  cheese  factory  and  explain  to  him, 
or  teach  him  the  technical  processes  of  manufac- 
ture. The  only  way  to  make  him  change  his  mind 
is  to  induce  him  to  keep  on  eating  olives,  when  one 
of  two  things  will  take  place — either  his  dislike 
of  olives  will  be  confirmed,  or  it  will  disappear. 
As  most  people  like  olives  when  they  become  accus- 
tomed to  the  taste,  the  latter  result,  is  to  be  expected. 
Now  suppose  that  someone  does  not  care  for  Beetho- 
ven's "Moonlight  Sonata".  My  contention  is  that 
he  cannot  be  made  to  like  it  by  studying  the  history 
of  music,  or  that  of  this  particular  selection,  nor  by 
analyzing  its  structure,  but  that  he  may  be  led  to 
do  it  by  listening  to  it  repeatedly.  As  persons  fa- 
miliar with  good  music  do  generally  enjoy  this  piece, 
it  is  probable  that  this  result  will  follow. 

I  know  that  I  must  now  justify  this  comparison. 
When  I  make  it  I  am  accustomed  to  indignant  pro- 
test on  the  part  of  some  of  my  students.  Is  it  not 
unworthy  to  compare  the  music  of  the  Moonlight 
Sonata  to  a  mere  physical  sensation  like  the  taste  of 
an  olive?  Only  as  it  may  be  considered  unworthy 
to  compare  the  great  and  the  small ;  the  complex  and 
the  simple.  Both  the  taste  of  the  olive  and  the  sound 
of  the  sonata,  have  a.  physical  origin  and  impress 
the  brain  through  the  agency  of  the  sense  organs. 
And  as  a  matter  of  fact  I  doubt  whether  the  sensa- 
tion of  the  music  is  much  more  complicated  than  that 
of  the  taste.  We  know  that  an  acoustic  sensation  is 
a  unit.     When  a  chorus  is  singing  with  orchestral 


POPULARIZING    MUSIC  331 

accompaniment  the  result  is  not  a  hundred  Bound 
waves,  Wut  one;  it  strikes  the  ear  drum  as  a  unit,  ami 
that  vibrates  as  a  unit,  so  that  the  impression  on  the 
brain,  about  whose  mechanism  we  are  ignorant,  must 
also  be  a  unit.  The  popularity  of  the  phonograph 
enables  us  to  illustrate  this  familiarly.  Examine 
with  a  microscope  a  record  of  a  complicated  musical 
performance,  with  many  voices  and  many  different 
kinds  of  instruments,  and  you  will  find  a  single 
wavy  line.  When  the  needle  causes  the  disk  to  vi- 
brate by  following  this  line,  it  vibrates  as  a  unit, 
just  as  the  ear-drum  does.  There  is  hut.  one  disk, 
yet  its  vibration  enables  us  t<»  pick  out  separately 
the  different  voice  parts,  and  to  recognize  the  sepa- 
rate quality  of  the  stringed  instruments,  the  wood- 
winds and  the  brasses,  with  the  drums,  bells,  and 
what  not.  When  we  taste  the  (dive,  we  get  a  sort 
of  chemical  effect.  We  do  not  know  what  happens 
as  definitely  as  we  do  in  the  case  of  a  musical  sound. 
but  the  various  atoms,  each  vibrating  in  its  own 
way,  act  upon  the  taste-buds  of  the  tongue  so  that 
a.  sensation  is  transmitted  to  the  brain— transmitted 
as  a  unit,  just  as  the  sound  is.  I  want  to  be  fair, 
so  I  will  acknowledge  that  instead  of  comparing  a 
single  sensation  of  taste  to  a  sequence  of  sounds,  I 
should  have  likened  it  to  a  musical  chord.  To  get  a 
taste  analogy  with  a  sonata  we  should  have  to  use 
a  sequence  of  taste  sensations,  possibly  that  present- 
ed by  a  course  dinner.  1  submit,  however,  that  this 
does  not  affect   my  argument 

bet  me  repeal  my  conviction,  then,  that  art  is 
primarily  a  matter  of  the  heart  and  not  of  the  head 
— of  the  feelings  and  not  of  the  intellect,  and  that 
the  feelings  are  trained  by  personal  experience,  not 
by  study.  One  cannot  learn  to  appreciate  a  poem, 
or  a  picture  or  a  piece  of  music  by  examining  it  his- 


332  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

torically  or  structurally,  only  by  experiencing  it  and 
others  like  it  again  and  again,  and  also  by  exper- 
iencing in  life  the  emotions  that  the  art  is  intended 
to  arouse.  Of  course  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that 
knowledge  of  history  and  technique  is  not  interest- 
ing and  valuable.  It  is  highly  interesting  to  know 
the  recipe  for  the  pie  and  to  watch  the  cook  make 
it;  but  tli is  does  not  affect  the  taste. 

Knowledge  obtained  by  study  does  affect  ability 
to  reproduce  or  create.  One  must  know  how  the  pie 
is  made  before  he  can  make  one  himself.  One  can 
not  write  a  poem  or  paint  a  picture  or  compose  a 
song,  without  preliminary  study.  This  should  be 
understood,  but  it  is  outside  the  pale  of  our  present 
discussion,  which  relates  to  the  chief  purpose  of  the 
music  collection  in  a  library  and  of  its  chief  uses. 
My  contention,  to  repeat,  is  that  it  is  related  to  mu- 
sical art  precisely  as  the  purpose  of  the  book-collec- 
tion is  related  to  the  art  of  literature. 

Now  the  present  status  of  the  music  collection 
is  precisely  what  that  of  the  book  collection  would 
be  in  a  community  where  the  percentage  of  literacy 
was  small,  where  a  considerable  number  of  persons 
did  not  understand  the  language  of  the  books,  even 
when  spoken  or  read  aloud,  where  those  who  knew 
the  language  understood  it  only  when  spoken  or 
read  and  where  readers  were  obliged  to  read  aloud 
before  they  could  appreciate  what  they  were  read- 
ing. A  community,  moreover,  where  teaching  gen- 
erally meant  solely  teaching  how  to  recite  or  read 
aloud  acceptably  to  others,  with  only  enough  ability 
to  read  to  get  the  sense  of  an  extract  and  enable  the 
reader  to  commit  it  to  memory.  A  librarian  set 
down  with  a  collection  of  books  in  such  a  community 
would  not  be  true  to  his  vocation  if  he  did  not  at- 
tempt to  better  this  state  of  things,  while  admitting 


POPULARIZING    MUSIC  333 

the  elements  of  good  that  it  contained.  For  instance. 
the  imaginary  situation  that  I  have  described  would 
be  quite  comparable  with  a  real  appreciation  and 
love  of  good  literature. 

In  the  first  place,  the  librarian  would  wish  to 
see  thai  all  the  members  of  his  community  wen-  able 
to  understand  the  language  of  his  hooks,  if  not  to 
read  it,  To  remember  our  analogy  for  a  moment, 
he  would  practically  tit  his  books  to  his  people.  If 
they  were  predominantly  French,  for  instance,  he 
would  buy  many  French  hooks.  But  one  can  not  do 
this  with  music,  f<»r  music  is  a  language  by  itself. 
for  the  most  part  untranslatable  into  any  other.  We 
must  assume  that  in  the  world  to  which  our  imagi- 
nary community  belongs  there  is  but  one  language, 
and  that  to  understand  the  hooks  those  who  do  not 
know  that  language  must  be  taught  it.  School  in- 
struction in  language  is  largely  limited  to  reading. 
Children  who  go  to  school  understand  and  talk  their 
language  already,  having  been  taught  it  at  home.  It 
is  to  the  homes,  therefore,  that  the  librarian  would 
have  to  look  for  this  instruction  and  he  would  have 
to  bring  to  hear  on  parents  whatever  influence  might 
be  at  his  disposal  to  make  them  see  its  value  and 
uses. 

Secondly,  he  would  have  to  see  that  as  many  as 
possible  were  taught  to  read  the  language.  This 
would  he  the  function  of  the  schools. 

Thirdly,  it  would  he  necessary  to  see  that  facil- 
ity in  reading  proceeded  so  far  that  readers  would 
not  find  it  necessary  to  read  aloud,  hut  could  when 
they  desired,  read  rapidly  "to  themselves".  It  would 
be  necessary,  of  course,  to  show  many  of  the  teach- 
ers and  almost  all  of  their  pupils,  that  reading  is 
primarily  not  to  enable  the  reader  to  recite  to  others, 
but  to  make  an  impression  on  his  own  mental  equip- 


334  IJ1JRARY    ESSAYS 

mt'iit.  It  is  quite  possible  for  one  to  learn  to  read 
out  loud  after  a  fashion,  in  a  foreign  tongue,  with- 
out understanding  a  word  of  it,  but  so  that  listeners 
may  get  a  fair  idea  of  it.  The  effect  on  the  reader 
in  this  case  is  absolutely  zero. 

.Musically,  this  kind  of  community  is  precisely  the 
one  that  public  libraries  have  to  deal  with.  Many 
of  our  clients  do  not  like  or  understand  music  at  all, 
or  they  care  for  only  the  most  elementary  melodies, 
harmonies  and  rythms — comparable  to  the  literature 
that  one  gets  in  a  child's  primer.  Of  those  whose 
range  of  appreciation  and  love  is  fairly  wide,  com- 
parative]}^ few  are  familiar  with  musical  notation, 
and  can  not  read  music.  Of  those  who  can  read, 
few  can  read  rapidly  and  with  assurance,  and  fewer 
still  can  read  without  audible  utterance;  that  is, 
they  can  not  read  to  themselves.  It  is  common  to 
hear  persons  who  can  sing  or  play  on  some  instru- 
ment with  a  fair  degree  of  success  and  taste  say 
"Oh,  I  can't  read;  I  have  to  pick  out  the  notes  and 
get  my  teacher  to  help  me,"  This  is  exactly  as  if 
someone  who  had  just  recited  an  oration  or  a  poem 
with  some  feeling  should  proclaim  complacently: 
u()h,  1  can't  really  read.  I  had  to  pick  out  that 
piece  word  for  word,  with  my  teacher  at  my  elbow 
to  help  me  out.'' 

In  the  face  of  such  a  situation  the  librarian 
should  feel  and  act  precisely  as  he  would  feel  and 
act  if  the  situation  existed  with  regard  to  books,  as 
it  has  already  been  imagined  and  described. 

First,  he  should  try  to  influence  the  growth  of 
musical  appreciation  through  the  home,  so  that  all 
the  children  in  a  family  shall  come  to  understand 
and  use  musi<;il  language  as  they  do  the  language  of 
the  spoken  word. 

Secondly,  he  should   try  to  influence  the  schools 


POPULARIZING    MUSIC  335 

go  thai  they  shall  teach  the  reading  of  musical  nota- 
tion as  thoroughly  as  they  do  the  reading  of  the 
printed  word,  and  to  persuade  teachers  <>f  music  to 
teach  music  really  and  no1  simply  the  art  of  per- 
forming on   some   musical   instrument. 

Thirdly,  he  should  point  out  to  his  musical  cli- 
ents thai  music  may  be  read  "to  oneself",  just  as 
language  can,  and  encourage  them  to  try  it,  begin 
ning  with  easy  examples.  Note  thai  reading  to  one- 
self can  be  <lone  only  by  those  who  already  know 
how  to  read  aloud,  and  only  by  practise.  Then-  Is 
no  way    in    which    it    can    be   taught. 

Fourthly,  he  should  have  in  his  library  a  a 
t.ion  of  music  picked  out  to  a  -rent  extenl  to  further 
the  ends  outlined  above.  Much  of  it  should  be  for 
readers,  not  for  performers.  His  lists  should  he 
made  for  readers  and  tie'  comments  on  individual 
titles  should  he  for  readers.  Moreover,  they  should 
at  present  he  such  as  will  help  the  beginner;  tor  a 
verv  large  proportion  of  our  musical  readers  are 
beginners  although  they  may  he  in  the  anomalous 
position  of  the  reader  who  knows  and  appreci 
his  subjed  matter  verv  thoroughly,  while  he  can  read 
about  it  only  hesitatingly  and  haltingly.  Imagine 
a  well-informed  and  intelligent  student  of  history 
who  has  completely  forgotten  to  read,  owing  to  some 
concussion  of  the  brain  which  1ms  not  impaired  Ids 
knowledge  in  any  other  way,  and  you  have  the  situ- 
ation  of  many  music-lovers. 

There  were  doubtless  poets  before  the  invention 
of  alphabets,  and  one  may  appreciate  a  symphony 
concert  without  knowing  his  musical  alphabet  or 
being  able  to  use  it ;  hut  we  are  accustomed  now  to 
considering  thorough  ability  to  read  as  a  prerequi- 
site to  the  requirement  of  a  general  education;  and 
I  do  not  see  why  ;is  complete  an  ability  to  read  : 


336  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

should  not  be  a  prerequisite  for  such  a  musical  edu- 
cation as  all  persons  ought  to  possess. 

The  analogy  between  the  reading  of  music  and 
that  of  Language  is  very  close,  as  we  have  seen,  and 
we  may  he  guided  by  it  largely;  hut  there  is  one  re- 
spect in  which  it  fails.  Music  and  poetry  may  both 
he  had  in  the  sense  that  they  are  ugly,  of  faulty 
construction,  or  trivial.  But  poetry  may  also  be 
bad  because  it  conveys  a  bad  moral  lesson  or  causes 
one  to  accept  what  is  false.  I  can  not  see  that  it  is 
possible  for  music  to  do  this,  except  by  association. 
A  tune  that  has  always  been  associated  with  improp- 
er words  may  in  time  come  to  be  considered  as  it- 
self improper,  but  there  can  be  nothing  objection- 
able about  the  music  in  itself.  Again,  music  may  be 
improperly  used.  Anyone  would  say  that  a  largo  in 
a  minor  key  was  out  of  place  at  a  wedding,  or  a  jig 
at  a  funeral.  Association  may  have,  but  does  not 
necessarily  have  anything  to  do  with  this;  but  here 
again  the  music  in  itself  is  not  objectionable.  This 
simplifies  the  selection  of  music  for  a  library;  for  it 
excludes  at  the  outset  almost  all  the  problems  of 
censorship.  Music  is  rejected  usually  for  negative 
reasons — because  it  is  not  worth  buying;  not  for  any 
active  evil  influence  that  it  is  likely  to  exert. 

This  question  comes  up  especially  in  connection 
with  certain  adjuncts  to  a  music  collection— pianola 
rolls  and  phonograph  records.  These  are  both  of 
great  aid  in  assisting  the  public  to  understand  the 
language  of  music,  which  they  must  do  before  they 
learn  to  read  it.  They  may  be  profitably  used,  of 
course  in  connection  with  reading,  and  yet  the  plea- 
sure of  following  a  piano  player  or  a  phonograph 
with  the  printed  score  seems  to  be  known  to  few. 
Every   library  must  judge  for  itself  whether  it  can 


POPULARIZING    MUSIC 

afford  to  put  money  into  these  adjuncts  but  in  most 
cases  it  is  unnecessary  to  do  so.  it  being  easj  to  get 
the  rolls  and  records  by  donation.  In  doing  this  at 
my  own  library  I  have  been  struck  with  the  trivial 
or  so-called  "popular"  character  of  most  of  the  rolls 
received.  I  am  told,  also  that  those  who  borrow 
them  (and  they  have  gone  out  "like  hot  cakes")  are 
largely  persons  who  have  not  visited  the  library  be- 
fore. 1  believe  that  this  sort  of  music  is  popular 
not  because  it  is  trivial  or  "trashy",  but  because  it 
is  easy  to  understand.  There  is  some  music  that 
is  both  good  and  easy  easy  to  understand  and  easy 
to  read.  Schumann's  Album  for  the  young  will  oc- 
cur to  anyone.  The  compositions  of  Ludwig  Schytte 
are  modern  examples,  lint  tie-  general  impression 
that  good  music  is  difficult  both  to  rend  and  appre- 
ciate— is  "high-brow",  in  fact;  and  that  easy  music 
is  always  trivial  and  poor,  is  a  deduction,  I  am  al'raid 
from  experience.  It  is  certainly  not  in  the  nature 
of  things.  However,  so  long  as  we  want  easy  music. 
both  to  hear  and  bo  read,  and  a  good  deal  of  it  is 
trashy,  I  can  see  nothing  to  do  but  to  use  the  trashy 
music.  With  the  music  rolls  triviality  is  all  we 
have    to    object    to — the     ceaseless     repetition     Of     the 

same  phrases  and   harmonies.     We  must  remember, 

however,  that  these  are  not  boresome  to  the  begin- 
ner. It  takes  a  good  deal  of  repetition  to  make  one 
tired  of  a  musical  phrase.  And  there  is  absolutely 
no  question  of  active  badness  here     only  of  worth- 

lessness. 

When  we  come  to  phonograph  records,  however, 
we  encounter  something  different.     So  far  as  these 

are  purely  musical,  what  has  been  said  of  the  music 
rolls  applies  to  them  also,  but  many  of  them  are  vo 
cal,  ami  the  words  are  often  far  below    library  stand- 


LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

ard.  When  a  record  is  rejected  for  its  words,  the 
music,  of  course,  must  go  with  it,  although  as  music 
it  may  be  quite  unexceptionable. 

The  location  of  the  music  collection  is  affected 
by  the  purpose  for  which  it  is  maintained.  A  col- 
lection for  scholars  alone  should  certainly  be  in  a 
separate  room,  with  an  expert  custodian.  But  when 
we  regard  the  collection  as  a  means  of  popularizing 
music  and  of  improving  popular  musical  taste,  the 
matter  takes  on  another  aspect.  A  person  who 
comes  to  the  library  for  the  purpose  of  visiting  the 
music  room  will  find  it,  no  matter  where  it  may  be, 
hut  the  reader  who  needs  to  have  his  attention 
called  to  it  or  in  whose  case  it  must  compete  for 
use  with  other  hooks,  will  neve]-  do  so.  Going  back 
to  our  analogy  with  general  literature  we  may  note 
that  when  a  librarian  wishes  to  promote  the  circula- 
tion of  some  special  class  of  literature  or  call  at- 
tention to  some  particular  book  or  books,  the  last 
thing  he  would  think  of  doing  would  be  to  set  them 
apart  in  a  special  room.  What  he  does  do  is  to 
place  them  conspicuously  in  the  most  frequented 
spot   in    his  library. 

This  is,  of  course,  only  one  side  of  the  question. 
No  one  can  browze  in  a  collection  of  books  unless 
he  knows  how  to  read;  and  so  long  as  music  readers 
can  not  read  "to  themselves",  the  reading  of  instru- 
mental pieces  can  not  be  done  without  the  aid  of 
the  actual  instrument.  Even  when  one  can  read 
music  to  himself  well  enough  to  pick  out  what  he 
wants  it  may  aid  him  to  be  abb'  to  perform  the  piece 
on  the  instrument  for  which  it  was  written.  Now 
the  most  frequented  spot  in  the  library,  where  1 
recommend  that  the  music  collection  shall  be  dis- 
played, is  not  the  place  for  a  piano  or  for  its  use. 
This  must   necessarily  be  in  a  separate  room. 


POPULARIZING    MUSIC  339 

These  are  not,  however,  absolutely  Irreconcilable 
requirements.  It  is  not  necessary  thai  the  music 
and  the  instrument  should  be  in  the  same  room.  A 
sound-proof  or  ;i  distantly-located  room,  for  tli«'  in- 
struments, may  be  used  by  those  who  wish  in  per- 
perform  pieces  before  selecting  them,  even  if  no  mu- 
sic at  all  is  shelved  in  the  room.  This  room  should 
preferably  be  as  near  us  possible  to  the  music  shelves, 
and  if  it  is  it  must  of  course  be  sound  proof. 

Going  back  again  for  a  moment  to  our  analogy, 
the  provision  of  a  sound  proof  music  room  corre- 
sponds to  the  creation  of  a  similar  room  for  the  ordi- 
nary reader,  where  he  may  take  bis  hooks  and  read 

them  aloud  to  see  how  they  sound.      The  mere  state 

ment  shows  us  how  far  behind  our  ability  to  read 
language  is  our  ability   to   read   music. 

When  I  first  began  to  present  these  ideas,  which 
seemed  to  me  to  be  absurdly  self-evident,  it  was  grad- 
ually borne  in  upon  me  that  most  people  considered 
them  new  and  strange,  both  those  who  agreed  with 
me  and  those  who  disagreed.  But  without  going 
into  the  question  of  what  music  can  and  can  not  con- 
vey to  the  human  mind,  it  seems  clear  to  me  that 
both  music  and  language  succeed  in  conveying  some- 
thing to  the  human  organism,  and  do  it  principally 
by  sound-waves.  In  the  case  of  both,  there  is  a  way 
Of  writing  down  what  is  to  be  conveyed,  so  thai  the 
record  may  be  used  by  another  person  who  wishes 
to  convey  it  by  sound,  or  so  that  a  person,  sufficient- 
ly skilled,  may  convey  it  to  himself,  without  making 
an  audible  sound.  These  facts  seem  to  me  to  estab- 
lish so  complete  an  analogy  that  we  ma\  treat  music 
in  a  library  precisely  as  we  treat  ordinary  hooks, 
both  in  selection,  distribution  and  use.  if  to  com- 
plete the  analog}  we  must  insist  on  certain  changes 
in   the  attitude   toward   music  of  both   educators  and 


340  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

readers,  this  kind  of  missionary  work  is  after  all 
no  more  and  no  other  than  that  which  the  modern 
librarian,  especially  in  America,  is  often  called  up- 
on to  do. 

I  am  a  believer  in  the  mission  of  music.  The 
public  library  can  do  no  more  helpful  thing  to  our 
modern  life  than  to  assist  the  public  to  understand 
and  love  it,  The  fact  that  it  is  not  a  representative 
art  makes  it  all  the  more  valuable  as  a  means  of 
detaching  the  mind  from  the  things  of  this  earth  and 
transporting  it  to  a  separate  world.  A  beautiful 
picture  or  statue  or  poem  is  anchored  to  the  ground 
by  the  necessary  associations  of  its  subject  matter. 
Music  has  no  such  anchor.  It  is  free  to  soar,  and 
soar  it  does,  bearing  with  it  the  listening  soul  into 
regions  that  have  no  relations  with  the  things  of 
every  day  life.  It  may  rest  or  it  may  stimulate;  it 
may  gladden  or  depress;  but  it  does  so  by  means  of 
its  own,  not  by  reminding  us  of  the  stimulating  or 
depressing  things  of  our  own  past  experience. 

In  the  multifarious  mission  of  the  Public  Library, 
as  we  Americans  see  it,  surely  the  popularization  of 
good  music  is  to  assume  no  unimportant  place. 


TWO   CARDINAL   SINS 

The  sins  of  which   I  purpose  to  speak  are  Dupli- 
cation and  Omission.     They  arc  peculiar  t« one 

class  of  persons,  to  do  one  business,  profession  or  in- 
stitution. They  are  ubiquitous  and  omnipresent. 
Those  who  use  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer  acknowl- 
edge them  when  they  confess  thai  they  have  done 
those  things  that  they  oughl  doI  to  have  dun.-  and 
have  left  undone  those  things  thai  they  ought  to 
have  done.  This  statement  covers  other  sins,  both  of 
commission  and  omission,  than  those  that  I  have 
specified  above,  but  it  includes  both  of  them.  The 
peculiarity  of  Duplication  and  Omission  is  that  they 
are  complementary  so  far  ;is  the  labor  and  expense 
involved  in  them  is  concerned.  Their  existence  is 
like  that  of  a  surplus  and  a  debl  in  the  same  purse. 
To  bewail  them  is  like  complaining  because  von  have 
a  thousand  dollars  that  you  know  not  how  to  invest 
and  at  the  same  time  because  you  owe  a  thousand 
that  you  can  not  pay.  The  whole  world  is  out  of 
joint  because  it  is  doing  twice  things  that  need  to 
be  done  only  once,  and  at  the  same  time  is  no!  doing 
at  all  things  that  ought  to  he  done.  The  man  with 
the  thousand-dollar  surplus  and  the  debt  of  the  same 
amount,  may  obtain  quick  relief  by  paying  his  indebt- 
edness with  his  balance.  The  world  will  he  relieved 
when  it  takes  the  energy  and  the  nioue\  now  expend- 
ed in  wasteful  duplication  and  puts  it  into  tin'  doing 
of  those  things  that   are   now    left    undone   because 

the  energy  and   money   necessary   to  do   them   are   es 
{►ended    wasteful ly.      It    is   very   easy,    is   it    not'.'       \v 


342  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

easy  as  adding  plus  10  to  minus  10  and  getting  zero. 
The  surplus  and  the  debt,  the  duplications  and  the 
omissions,  extinguish  cadi  other  and  neither  of  them 
bothers  us  any  more.  Unfortunately  there  are  prac- 
tical obstacles  that  do  not  present  themselves  in  the 
case  of  the  algebraic  sum.  These  difficulties  might 
occur  in  the  case  of  the  man  with  the  surplus  who 
owed  money,  if  he  could  be  supposed  ignorant  both 
of  his  balance  and  of  his  debt,  while  suffering  the 
inconveniences  due  to  both.  This  ignorance  is  the 
rule,  rather  than  the  exception,  in  the  case  of  ordi- 
nary duplications  and  omissions.  Either  the  dupli- 
cation is  not  noticed,  because  at  first  sight  it  does 
not  appear  to  be  a  duplication,  or  when  recognized 
as  such,  its  existence  does  not  seem  to  be  of  any  con- 
sequence. Besides  this,  both  duplications  and  omis- 
sions seem  to  some  to  be  part  of  the  natural  order 
of  things  ordained  for  us  and  not  to  be  disturbed 
by  the  hand  of  impiety. 

One  hardly  knows  when  to  begin  with  illustra- 
tions where  there  is  such  a  wealth  of  material, 
whether  we  seek  it  in  civics,  or  history,  or  science, 
or  business  or  in  domestic  economy.  As  you  have 
doubtless  surmised  I  intend  to  take  the  Public  Li- 
brary as  my  chief  field  of  research,  but  I  must  main- 
tain or  at  least  justify  my  thesis  of  universality  by 
a  preliminary  trip  through  a  much  broader  field. 

First  let  us  take  the  age-old  universal  grievance, 
the  unequal  distribution  of  wealth,  which  from  our 
present  standpoint  we  may  simplify  by  saying  that 
one  man  has  two  dollars  where  he  needs  only  one 
and  another  has  no  dollars  at  all — omission  in  his 
case  where  there  is  duplication  in  the  other.  I  know 
there  are  some  people  who  fail  to  see  two  sins  in 
these  simple  and  well-known  facts,  but  most  of  us 
nowadays  are  recognizing  that  it  is  at  least  an  un- 


TWO    CARDINAL    SINS  343 

satisfactory  state  of  affairs.  Where  we  disagree  is 
that  some  feel  that  however  unsatisfactory  it  may  be 
there  is  nothing  to  be  done  about  it;  that  others  who 
agree  that  it  is  unsatisfactory  are  unable  to  agree 
on  what  they  would  consider  satisfactory;  and  thai 
even  those  who  think  they  know  this  are  unable  to 
get  together  on  a  method  of  attaining  what  tiny 
desire.  These  various  kinds  and  degrees  of  disagree- 
ment constitute  the  reason  why  these  two  particular 
sins  of  duplication  and  omission  continue  to  be  com- 
mitted. 

Now  let  us  take  a  very  big  jump,  from  the  gen- 
eral theory  of  socialism  down  to  the  golf-clubs  of 
Middlefield,  Mass.— a  real  place,  though  I  have  taken 
the  liberty  to  change  its  name.  With  a  population 
of  about  a  thousand,  this  model  village  supported 
until  recently  two  of  these  institutions  for  no  other 
reason  than  the  general  tendency  to  wasteful  dupli- 
cation, already  noted.  The  links  on  the  West  Side 
ami  those  on  the  East  Side  had  both  their  ardent 
partisans.  Each  club  considered  the  existence  of  the 
other  a  shame  and  an  outrage  and  each  was  only  too 
Willing  to  abolish  duplication  by  consolidation,  al- 
ways provided  its  own  particular  links  should  be  thr 
ones  to  survive. 

For  years  this  small  place  supported  these  two 
clubs,  each  with  its  club-house,  grounds,  dues  and  as- 
sessments. Those  who  were  not  partisans  had  to 
belong  to  both,  to  keep  the  peace.  Meanwhile,  the 
town  greatly  needed  a  small  social  club  where  the 
retired  city  merchants,  professional  men  and  artists 
who  largely  made  up  its  population  could  assemble 
occasionally,  have  a  game  of  pool  or  bridge  and  drink 
a  cup  of  tea.  But  their  incomes  were  not  large  and 
they  had  to  keep  up  those  two  golf  clubs.  The  sit  mi 
tion  is  so  typical  that  I  am  enlarging  on  it  a  little. 


344  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

I  wish  that  the  outcome  were  typical  too.  That  out- 
come was  that  after  years  of  discussion  the  clubs 
were  merged,  one  of  the  links  was  discontinued,  and 
the  village  now  enjoys  the  little  social  club  that  it 
needed.  An  omission  has  been  filled  by  doing  away 
with   a   duplication. 

The  church  history  of  many  a  small  place  is  very 
much  to  the  point.  We  see  three  or  four  denomina- 
tional bodies  struggling  with  small  congregations, 
inadequate  buildings  aud  general  poverty  when  by 
uniting  they  might  fill  all  these  lacks  simply  by  sav- 
ing what  they  are  now  spending  on  duplication. 
Doctrinal  differences  are  said  to  keep  them  apart; 
but  to  the  non-theological  mind  these  differences  are 
not  greater  than  these  that  must  always  exist  between 
thoughtful  men  in  the  same  religious  body.  It  is 
pleasant  to  see  an  occasional  lapse  into  sanity,  shown 
by  the  union  of  such  churches  and  the  consequent 
strengthening  and  growth  of  a  town's  religious  life. 
Probably  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  whole 
problem  of  Christian  Units'  is  but  a  phase  of  this 
general  question  of  duplication  and  omission. 

In  the  business  world  our  two  sins  flourish  like 
green  bay  trees.  Small  villages  have  two  groceries 
and  no  hardware  store;  large  cities  may  be  overrun 
with  one  trade  while  there  is  lack  of  another.  These 
things  ought  to  adjust  themselves,  but  they  do  not. 
One  can  pick  out  duplication  and  omission  in  the 
stock  of  a  single  institution.  On  asking  for  some- 
thing at  a  department  store  recently  I  was  met  with 
the  remark.  "Isn't  that  funny?  You  are  the  fifteenth 
person  who  has  asked  for  that  in  the  last  three 
days!*'  The  fact  was  noted  as  merely  curious  and 
interesting  and  there  was  apparently  no  intention  of 
remedying  the  omission,  even  by  cutting  out  some  of 
the  superfluous  styles  of  neckties. 


TWO    CABDINAL    SINS 

The  most  flagrant  example  I  know  of  duplication 
in  the  business  and  industrial  world  is  the  duplicate 
telephone  company.  A  telephone  company  is  a  good 
example  of  a  mutual  enterprise;  its  value  to  any  sub- 
scriber depends  on  the  existence  <>f  all  the  other  sub- 
scribers. If  a  man  could  afford  to  buy  up  the  com- 
pany and  discontinue  all  the  telephones  but  his  own, 
the  value  would  disappear.  Two  companies  are 
simply  a  nuisance,  involving  duplication  of  plant 
with  no  resulting  convenience.  The  same  is  not  true 
of  gas  or  water  companies,  because  here  one  user 
does  not  depend  on  the  others.  Von  would  get  jnst 
as  good  service  if  the  electric  company  concluded  to 
serve  yon,  and  yon  alone.  There  is,  to  he  sure,  waste- 
ful duplication  in  these  cases  also,  hnt  in  the  instance 
of  the  telephone  it  is  accompanied  with  necessary  de- 
terioration of  service. 

I  suppose  I  need  say  little  about  the  existem 
our  two  sins  in  the  household.  We  are  honeycombed 
with  them  from  the  rural  dinner  table  where  there 
are  no  SOUp  and  three  kinds  of  pie,  to  the  housewife 
who  yields  to  the  temptation  to  buy  another  evening 
dress  and  "can  not  afford"  an  outing  costume.  What 
we  need  everywhere  is  some  kind  of  a  Board  of 
Equalization,  with  autocratic  powers,  that  will  riur- 
ourously  suppress  all  our  duplication  and  with  the 
money  saved  supply  our  omissions  for  us. 

We   may  learn   something   from    the  efforts   that 
have  recently  been  made  to  minimize  these  two  sins 
in  charitable  work  and  social  service.     Every  city 
contains  numerous  charitable  bodies,  all   trying  to 
relieve  want  and  alleviate  suffering.     They  are  fre 
quently  the  prey  of  unscrupulous  persons  who  man 
age  to  get  their  wants  alleviated  by  three  <>r  foui 
cieties   at    onci — by   each,    of   course,    without    the 

knowledge   of    the   others.      The    result    is   that    there 


346  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

arc  no  funds  to  relieve  many  worthy  persons  who  ac- 
cordingly suiter.  The  two  sins  in  this  case  are  be- 
ing  avoided  by  the  simple  establishment  of  a  card- 
index  at  a  central  point.  When  an  application  is 
made  for  relief  the  index-office  is  informed  by  tele- 
phone, the  index  is  consulted,  and  if  it  is  found  that 
the  applicant  is  already  receiving  aid  from  some 
other  source  his  request  is  politely  but  firmly  refused. 
The  present  production  of  books  gives  us  an  in- 
structive example  of  the  existence  of  duplications 
and  omissions  on  a  large  scale;  and  the  elucidation 
of  these  will  bring  us  a  little  nearer  to  the  applica- 
tion of  our  principles  to  the  library,  toward  which 
we  are  tending.  1  know  not  which  is  the  more  strik- 
ing fact  in  connection  with  the  publishing  business 

the  continual  issue  of  useless  books— fiction  and 

non-fiction,  or  the  non-existence  of  works  on  vital 
subjects  regarding  which  we  need  information.  Of 
course  this  is  due  partly  to  the  fact  that  the  men 
who  know  things  are  also  the  men  who  do  things. 
They  are  too  busy  to  write  them  down.  It  is  also 
due  to  the  abnormal  appetites  of  the  semi-educated, 
which  create  a  demand  for  the  trivial  and  fatuous. 
The  semi-educated  person  is  intellectually  young;  he 
has  the  peculiarities  of  the  child.  Foremost  among 
these  is  the  love  of  repetition.  The  little  one  would 
rather  hear  his  favorite  fairy  tale  for  the  hundredth 
time  than  risk  an  adventure  into  stranger  fields  of 
narrative.  There  is  something  admirable  about  this 
when  it  leads  to  the  adult's  love  of  re-reading  great 
literature.  But  in  the  semi-educatd  it  appears  as 
an  unlimited  capacity  for  assimilating  unreal  fiction 
with  the  same  plots,  the  same  characters,  the  same 
adventures  and  the  same  emotions,  depicted  time 
after  time  with  slight  changes  in  names  and  attend- 
ant circumstances. 


TWO    CARDINAL    SINS  347 

An  African  explorer  told  me  recently  thai  Hie 
events  attending  the  southward  progress  of  the 
French  through  the  Sahara  and  down  Into  Central 

Africa  were  the  most  thrilling  and  the  must  Import- 
ant, from  the  standpoint  of  world  history,  among 
those  of  recent  times.  The  story  of  them  remains 
unwritten,  except  for  a  few  episodes  in  French  that 
have  not  been  thought  worthy  of  translation  into 
other  tongues.  Vet  in  this  period  how  much  trivial 
incident,  how  much  banal  reminiscence,  has  been 
thought  worthy  of  enshrinemenl  in  bulky  octavos. 
Selling  at  four  dollars  each!  The  money  spent  in 
putting  forth  the  same  idle  stuff  that  has  oppressed 
tin'  world  for  centuries  would  have  supplied  great 
gaps  in  our  catalogues  of  history,  travel  and  science 
and  have  given  us  vital  literature  that  we  may  now 
have  lost  forever. 

In  fiction,  the  sin  of  repetition  is  largely  due 
to  the  substitution  of  imagination  for  observation. 
Xo  two  actual  things  are  alike  and  no  two  events 
happen  in  the  same  way.  observation  and  accurate 
description  will  never  result  in  duplication.  Hut 
the  semi-educated  imagination  sees  always  the  same 
things  and  sees  them  in  the  same  way;  and  its  use 
in  the  writing  of  fiction  results  as  we  have  seen. 

Would  that  we  had,  to-day  and  here,  realism  like 
that  of  Turgenief  in  his  ".Memoirs  of  a  Sportsman" 
— the  detailed  account  of  everyday  happenings;  the 
hardest  thing  in  the  world  to  write  interestingly. 
When  we  try  it,  which  we  seldom  do,  we  seem  to  re- 
vert at  once  to  the  dreary  side  of  life,  which  doubt- 
less exists  but  surely  not  to  the  exclusion  of  other 
things.  Turgenief's  book  helped  toward  the  emanci- 
pation of  the  serfs.  I  will  not  dwell  on  that,  for  Mrs. 
Stowe's  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  a  very  different  BOrt  of 
hook,   performed  a  like  office  for  us.      1    will   rather 


348  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

insist  that  Turgenief  wrote  simple,  vital  descriptive 
literature;  something  that  you  will  look  far  to  find 
in  our  modern  fiction. 

Our  books  of  reference  are  full  of  duplications 
and  omissions.  Search  the  commoner  dictionaries 
and  cvclopedias  on  the  library  shelves  and  you  will 
find  countless  instances  of  items  of  information 
given  twice  or  thrice  and  others  left  out  altogether— 
of  words  entered  under  more  than  one  form  and 
completely  defined  under  each,  while  cross-references 
lead  the  seeker  to  nothing  at  all.  After  working  a 
good  many  years  on  books  of  this  kind  I  am  con- 
vinced that  the  art  of  making  a  perfect  dictionary  or 
cyclopedia  is  the  art  of  avoiding  duplication  and 
omission.  This  can  not  be  done  until  publishers  are 
willing  to  allow  sufficient  time  to  elaborate  a  plan 
before  beginning  work  on  one  of  these  books.  This, 
so  far,  has  never  been  done,  and  the  two  sins  con- 
tinue to  be  committed,  here  as  elsewhere. 

It  is  doubtless  time  for  our  application  of  these 
principles  to  the  library.  We  have  not  to  look  far 
to  begin. 

Take  any  city  of  average  size  and  inquire  how 
many  libraries  it  supports.  Is  there  any  necessity 
in  a  town  for  more  than  one  library?  I  am  open 
to  conviction,  but  I  doubt.  There  are  excellent  rea- 
sons for  the  duplication  in  each  case,  I  know,  just  as 
there  were  for  the  two  golf  clubs  in  our  little  town. 
The  duplication  in  buildings,  staff  and  books  is  very 
costly,  and  the  service,  no  matter  how  good  it  may 
be,  is  not  bettered  by  this  duplication.  The  trouble 
may  be  minimized  by  co-operation,  but  it  still  ex- 
ists. Take,  if  you  please,  the  one  item  of  book-pur- 
chase. I  shall  not  speak  here  of  private  owners, 
though  they  must  bear  their  share  of  blame  and  of 
punishment  for  our  two  sins;  but  add  together  the 


TWO    CARDINAL    SINS  349 

book  funds  of  the  two  or  three  large  libraries — pub- 
lic or  subscription— and  of  the  dozen  small  ones— 
special,  denominational,  associational  in  a  com- 
munity, and  Bee  to  what  a  considerable  sum  if 
amounts.  If  it  could  be  administered  and  expended 
as  a  unit,  is  there  any  one  who  will  maintain  that 
the  precise  books  would  be  bought  that  actually  are 
bought?  We  find  all  these  libraries  buying  copies 
of  the  same  hook  when  our  copy  is  all  that  tin-  com 
niunity  needs,  each  ignoring  the  others  and  each  la- 
menting the  insufficiency  of  its  funds.  I  have  not 
forgotten  such  conspicuous  instances  of  co-operation 
in  book-purchase  as  that  of  the  three  large  libraries 
iu  Chicago,  but  I  also  do  not  forget  that  it  is  rare, 
and  that  even  in  Chicago  it  has  been  found  difficult 
to  carry  it  out  in  the  perfection  in  which  it  is  t..  be 
found  on  paper.  If  we  add  private  purchasers  to 
the  libraries  I  have  little  hesitation  in  saying  that 
the  money  spent  on  books  in  any  community  is  quite 
enough  to  buy  all  that  the  community  needs.  The 
lacks  are  due  to  the  fact  that  the  sum  needed  t<.  sup- 
ply them  is  spent  on  useless  duplicates. 

I  am  not  proposing  plans,  here  or  elsewhere,  to 
perform  the  addition  of  plus  and  minus  quantities 
that  is  so  easy  in  pure  algebra;  I  am  merely  point- 
ing out  their  existence.  From  my  point  of  view  the 
ideal  situation  in  a  community  is  the  administration 
by  a  single  body  of  all  its  library  activities,  even 
private  owners  co-operating  to  a  certain  extent.  Let 
us  refresh  our  memories  with  a  bit  of  library  history. 
There  are  at  present  a  -feat  nian.\  separate  libraries 
in  greater  New  York.  That  is,  from  my  point  of  view, 
a  bad  thing,  lint  there  were  once  a  great  man\ 
more.  New  York  and  Brooklyn  were  full  of  small 
circulating  libraries  denominational,  charitable  and 
associational;  and    many   of   them    had   succeeded   in 


350  LIBKAKY    ESSAYS 

obtaining  small  subsidies  from  the  city.  The  sum  of 
these  was  considerable— or  would  have  been  consid- 
erable had  it  been  administered  as  a  sum,  instead  of 
in  separate  driblets.  All  the  considerations  noted 
above  applied  in  this  case,  but  the  Board  of  Equal- 
ization for  which  we  have  been  sighing  actually  ex- 
isted here.  It  was  the  city  government,  which  be- 
stowed and  controlled  a  large  part  of  these  institu- 
tional incomes.  A  city  comptroller  with  a  business- 
like mind  saw  all  this  and  proceeded  to  act  upon  it. 
The  small  libraries  became  branches  of  the  public  li- 
braries of  New  York  and  Brooklyn.  The  city  sub- 
sidy, in  a  lump  sum  went  to  those  institutions.  If 
there  is  any  one  who  now  wishes  to  return  to  the  old 
system  of  separate  control  and  duplication  of  effort, 
I  am  unacquainted  with  him;  notwithstanding  the 
fact  that  1  know  many  trustees  of  the  consolidated 
institutions  who  were  filled  with  rage  at  the  sum- 
mary action  of  the  city.  That  action  was  in  the  na- 
ture of  both  a  threat  and  a  bribe— a  threat  to  discon- 
tinue the  appropriation  of  city  funds  for  a  library 
that  should  refuse  to  consolidate  and  a  bribe  in  the 
shape  of  a  hint  of  additional  favors  to  come  if  it 
should  not  refuse.  Mr.  Andrew  Carnegie's  offer  to 
build  branch  libraries,  coming  at  about  this  time, 
made  it  possible  to  reinforce  this  hint  very  effective- 
ly- 

Our  federal  government  is  being  held  up  as  the 

model  for  a  future  world  federation,  and  its  success- 
ful operation  confutes  the  fears  of  those  who  doubt 
the  workability  of  any  such  plan.  In  like  manner  I 
beg  to  point  to  the  library  consolidations  in  New 
York  and  Brooklyn  as  an  evidence  that  such  remov- 
al of  duplication  elsewhere  would  enable  us  to  sup- 
ply omissions  in  library  service.  All  we  need  is  a 
motive — if  not  the  threats  and  bribes  that  forced  the 


TWO    CARDINAL    SINS  351 

New  York  consolidation,  then  something  of  equal  ef- 
fect    But  as  I  have  said  I  am  not  proposing  plans. 
The  abolition  of  this  kind  of  duplication  requires 
pressure  from  an  outside  body  or  agreement  among 
those  concerned;  no  one  of  us,  acting  alone,  can  do 
away  with  it.    But  there  dre  duplications  and  omis- 
sions in  the  work  of  every  library  that  it  is  in  the 
power  of  the  librarian   to  remedy.     .Many  of  these 
are  the  result  of  growth.     I  know  of  no  profession 
whose  members  are  more  continually  and  consistent- 
ly looking  for  more  work  to  do  than  thai  of  librari- 
anship.    This  quest  is  rarely  carried  on  cooperatively 
in  a  library.     The  head  of  each  department   grasps 
every  opportunity  to  enlarge    her    sphere    of    influ- 
ence, with  the  result  that   her  sphere   first    touches 
that  of  another  department  and   then    intersects  it. 
so  that  they  possess  certain  parts  of  the  field  of  ser- 
vice in  common.     The  departments  concerned   may 
not  know  of  this  duplication,    or    they    may    realize 
that  it  is  going  on  and  be  unwilling  t<>  stop  it  for 
various  reasons.      Each    department-head,    like    the 
golf-clubs  mentioned   above,  may  be  willing  to  abol- 
ish duplication  by  driving  her  fellow-worker  out  of 
the  field,  but  not  otherwise;  and   her  fear  lest   she 
herself  may  have  to  be  the  one  to  retire  may  induce 
her  to  keep  silence.     Sometimes   the    librarian    him- 
self,   observing    the    interference,     contents     himself 
with  seeing  that  individual  items  of  service  arc  not 
duplicated,   leaving   the   two  departments   to  do,   in 
part,  the  same  kind  of  work,  though  not  in  precisely 
the  same  items.     This  is  but  a  partial  atonement   for 
our  two  sins.     Although  there  is,  perhaps,  no  longer 
actual  duplication   of  work,   there  is  duplication   of 
administration,  duplication    of    thought    and    plan- 
ning.    All  this  is  waste  of  effort   that   should   be  de- 
voted to  doing  some  of  the  things  that  everv  lihrarv 


352  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

leaves  undone.  I  have  elsewhere  treated  of  what  I 
call  "conflicts  of  jurisdiction"  in  libraries.  This 
comes  under  the  same  head,  though  there  may  be  no 
actual  clash  of  authorities. 

Sometimes  we  have  cases  resembling  those  of  the 
applicants  for  charitable  aid  from  various  sources. 
Members  of  the  public  entitled  to  library  service,  the 
amount  of  which  has  been  limited  by  the  rules  to 
ensure  proper  distribution  and  to  prevent  monopoly, 
manage  to  get  two  or  three  times  as  much  as  they 
should  get,  by  applying  to  different  departments, 
or  to  the  same  department  under  different  names. 
There  has  been  much  removal  of  restrictions  of  late, 
in  libraries,  with  the  intent  to  give  fuller  and  freer 
service  to  the  public.  There  should  be  no  restriction 
that  interferes  with  such  service.  But  many  restric- 
tions are  intended  merely  to  check  those  whose  ten- 
dency is  to  hamper  service;  and  removal  of  these 
will  evidently  injure  the  public,  not  benefit  it.  Traf- 
fic regulations  are  a  great  bother,  but  their  removal 
would  not  be  in  the  public  interest.  Neither  would 
the  removal  of  necessary  regulation  of  library  traf- 
fic— the  free  distribution  of  books  through  the  ap- 
pointed public  agencies.  I  sympathize  with  our  mod- 
ern desire  to  let  Mr.  A  have  as  many  books  as  he 
wants  and  to  keep  them  as  long  as  he  wants;  but 
this  sympathy  changes  to  indignation  when  Mr.  A 
proves  to  be  a  library  hog,  taking  advantage  of  his 
privileges  simply  to  keep  away  from  Mr.  B  and  Miss 
C  the  books  that  they  want.  Now  and  again  we 
find  a  reader  who  understands  increase  of  library 
privileges  to  mean  taking  a  book  away  from  some- 
one else  and  giving  it  to  him.  There  could  be  no 
more  flagrant  example  of  the  double  sin  of  duplica- 
tion and  omission— giving  A  more  than  he  can  use 
and  thereby  depriving  B  of  what  he  needs. 

The  expenditure  of  time  is  a  domain  in  which 


TWO    CARDINAL    SIN-  353 

our  two  sins  become  especially  noticeable.  If  one 
lias  plenty  of  money  be  may  waste  a  good  deal  with- 
out serious  effects;  but  waste  of  time  is  different 
The  total  extent  of  time  is  doubtless  infinite,  but  not 
its  extent  as  available  to  the  individual.  lie  has 
only  his  three-score  years  and  ten,  and  astronomical 
happenings  have  chopped  this  up  for  him  into  years, 
months,  weeks  and  days,  any  one  of  which  is  largely 
a  repetition  of  those  that  have  gone  before.  So  many 
of  our  duties,  for  instance,  are  daily  that  the  average 
man  has  only  a  few  hours  out  of  the  twenty-four  t<< 
deal  with  emergency  work,  "hurry  calls"and  all 
sorts  of  exceptional  demands  on  his  time.  If  he 
gives  ten  minutes  to  something  that  requires  but 
five,  he  must  often  neglect  a  duty,  and  this  consti- 
tutes duplication  and  omission  of  time,  to  be  rem- 
edied by  taking  the  unneccessary  five  minutes  from 
one  task  and  bestowing  it  on  another.  Here  again, 
however,  our  algebraic  addition  is  simple  only  on 
paper.  We  are  hindered  not  only  by  our  own  pro- 
pensity to  waste  time  but  by  those  whose  own  is  of 
no  value  and  who  therefore  insist  on  wasting  ours 
for  us. 

This  is  a  subject  on  which  most  executive  officers 
can  speak  feelingly.  Such  officers  are  troubled 
with  two  kinds  of  lieutenants — those  who  keep  them 
in  ignorance  of  what  is  going  on  and  those  who  in- 
sist on  putting  them  in  continual  possession  of  triv- 
ial details — more  omission  and  duplication,  you  see. 
One  special  kind  of  time-waster  is  the  assistant  who 
comes  to  her  chief  with  a  request.  Foreseeing  refus- 
al she  has  primed  herself  with  all  sorts  <>f  arguments 
and  is  ready  to  smash  all  opposition  in  a  logical 
presentation  of  the  subject  calculated  t«»  occupy 
thirty  minutes  or  so.  But  the  request,  as  stated,  ap- 
peals to  her  chief  as  reasonable,  and  he  grants  it  at 
once  without  hearing  the  argument      !><>  von   think 


354  LIIiRARY    ESSAYS 

the  petitioner  is  going  to  waste  all  that  valuable 
logic?  Not  she!  She  stands  her  ground  and  pours 
it  all  out,  the  whole  half  hour  of  it;  and  when  the 
victim  has  granted  a  second  time  what  he  had  al- 
ready granted  without  argument,  she  retires  flushed 
with  triumph  at  her  success.  And  while  this  dupli- 
cator was  duplicating,  the  other  sinner,  the  "oinit- 
tor",  was  performing  some  innocent  and  valuable  ad- 
ministrative act  without  her  chief's  knowledge, 
causing  him  to  give  wrong  information  to  a  caller 
and  convict  himself  of  ignorance  of  what  is  going 
on  in  his  own  institution. 

Time-wasting,  of  course,  is  by  no  means  confined 
to  the  library  staff.  Much  of  every  one's  time,  in  a 
library,  is  consumed  in  fruitless  conversations  with 
the  public — the  answering  of  trivial  questions,  the 
search  for  data  that  can  do  no  one  any  good,  efforts 
to  appease  the  wrath  of  someone  who  ought  never  to 
have  been  angry  at  all,  attempts  to  explain  things 
verbally  when  adequate  explanations  in  print  are 
at  hand.  All  these  things  consume  valuable  time 
and  thereby  force  the  omission  of  public  services  that 
would  otherwise  be  performed.  Some  of  them  are 
unavoidable.  We  must  always  charge  up  a  little 
time  to  the  account  of  courtesy,  the  avoidance  of 
brusqueness,  the  maintenance  in  the  community  of 
that  tradition  of  library  helpfulness  that  is  perhaps 
the  library's  chief  asset.  This  we  can  not  afford  to 
lose.  But  without  sacrificing  it,  can  we  not  elimin- 
ate some  of  the  bores,  cut  down  our  useless  services 
for  the  sake  of  performing  a  few  more  useful  ones, 
and  increase  the  amount  of  library  energy  usefully 
employed  without  enlarging  the  total  sum  expended? 
This  is  one  of  our  most  vital  problems,  did  we  but 
realize  it. 

We  have  gone  far  enough,  perhaps,  to  realize  that 


TWO    CARDINAL    SINS  355 

our  two  sins  an*  indeed  cardinal  and  fundamental. 

The  authors  of  the  Prayer  Hook  were  right  We 
have  done  those  things  that  we  ought  not  to  have 
done  and  we  have  left  undone  those  things  that  we 
ought  to  have  done;  and  we  are  all  miserable  sinners. 
If  I  had  nerve  enough  to  add  a  new  society  to  the 
thousand  and  one  that  carry  on  their  multifarious 
activities  aboul  us,  I  should  found  a  League  to  Sup- 
press Duplications  and  Supply  Omissions. 


A    MESSAGE   TO    BEGINNERS 

History  may  be  described  as  an  account  of  the 
conflict  between  the  tendency  of  things  to  move  and 
efforts  to  fasten  them  down  so  that  they  will  keep 
still.  Where  they  have  been  moving  in  the  wrong  di 
rection  these  efforts  have  been  praiseworthy;  but 
in  to<>  many  instances  motion  has  been  resisted  sim 
ply  because  it  is  motion,  quiescence  being  Looked  up- 
on as  the  supreme  good  .  In  his  interesting  "History 
of  Fiji*'.  Dr.  Alfred  Goldsborough  .Mayer  notes  thai 
the  difference  between  the  savage  and  the  civilized 
man  is  not  one  of  content  of  knowledge,  for  the  s&y 
age  often  knows  far  more  than  we  do,  hut  is  due  to 
the  fact  that  the  savage  is  hound  hand  and  foot  l>y 
tradition — he  is  a  slave  to  his  imagination,  and  to 
that  of  his  forefathers.  The  conflict  in  his  case  has 
ended  definitely  with  the  triumph  of  the  fastening 
down  process.  There  is  no  more  motion.  He  can 
not  fall  back,  but  neither  can  he  move  forward,  lb' 
is  locked  in  one  position  that  of  the  particular  gen- 
eration, five,  fifty  or  live  hundred  years  ago,  when 
his  fight   for  progress  was  lost. 

With  the  civilized  man  the  fight  still  goes  on  If 
is  not  yet  won  nor  lost  and  the  story  of  it.  as  1  have 
said,  is  history.  Head  it  in  this  light  and  it  will  is 
sume  for  you  new  significance.  Wars,  revolutions, 
changes  of  dynasty,  racial  migrations,  linguistic 
changes,  the  achievements   of  art,    the    triumphs   of 

science,  the  evolution  of  social  systems,  the  develop 
incut  of  justice,  the  rise  of  literature  and  the  drama 
— everything  that    marks  the  story   of   what    lias   I i 


358  LIBRABY    ESSAYS 

going  on  in  the  world— is  but  a  phase  of  this  age- 
long  struggle  between  forces  and  obstacles  of  whose 
origins,  at  bottom,  we  know  little.  So  far  as  the 
obstacles  have  won,  there  are  still  savage  elements 
lurking  in  us;  so  far  as  we  have  thrust  them  aside, 
we  are  advancing  further  toward  civilization.  The 
one  title  that  we  have  to  call  ourselves  civilized  is 
the  fact  that  no  set  of  traditions  or  customs— no  in- 
stjt,ltj)m_l,a,s  yet  become  crystallized  into  the  fixity 
that  obtains  with  the  savage  races;— not  the  Church, 
not  government,  not  science,  nor  art  nor  literature. 
All  these  are  changing,  despite  efforts  to  pin  them 
down.  Our  language,  our  social  customs  are  alter- 
in-;  our  fashions  of  dress  change  from  year  to  year. 
Our  old  people,  for  a  man  often  reverts  to  savagery 
in  his  old  age,  pass  away  with  words  of  regret  on 
their  lips  for  the  good  old  days  of  their  youth,  when 
things  were  different.  A  savage  has  never  to  do  this, 
for  the  days  of  his  youth  and  his  age  are  precisely 
the  same — custom,  speech,  habit,  observance,  tradi- 
tion, all  are  locked  up  into  fixity. 

The  education  of  the  savage  is  directed  toward 
perpetuating  this  fixity;  that  of  the  civilized  man 
should  be  a  force  in  the  opposite  direction.  Recog- 
i  nizing  that  change  is  the  life-blood  of  civilization, 
it  should  be  devoted  to  controlling  and  directing  that 
change,  leading  the  mind  of  the  pupil  to  anticipating 
and  welcoming  it  and  bracing  that  mind  against  all 
feeling  of  shock  due  to  the  mere  starting  of  the  ma- 
chinery of  progress.  I  say  this  is  what  education 
should  be.  I  believe  that  it  is  tending  in  this  way. 
But  a  large  part  of  it  is  still  savage — an  effort  to 
keep  our  customs,  thoughts  and  actions  to  standards 
set  up  by  our  ancestors. 

The  Public  Library,  we  are  fond  of  saying,  is  an 
educational  institution ;    which    kind    of    education 


A   MESSAGE   TO   BEGINNERS 

shall  it  dispense?     Shall  it  be  a  motor  or  a  brake? 
Shall  it  look  back  into  the  past  or  forward  into  the 

future? 

To  many  persons,  the  idea  of  a  forward-looking 

library  seems  absurd.  It  is  essentially  a  repository 
of  records,  and  records  are  of  the  past.  You  will 
find  somewhere,  unless  oblivion  lias  overtaken  it.  an 
address  by  your  lecturer  on  "The  Public  Library  as 
a  Conservative  Force".  Such  it  doubtless  is  and 
such  it  should  be  but  its  conservatism  is  that  of 
control,  not  of  stagnation.  It  is  the  skilled  driver 
who  keeps  the  car  in  the  road— not  the  ignoramus 
who  stalls  it  in  the  ditch.  Records  are  assuredly  of 
the  past ;  but  the  past  and  its  records  may  be  looked 
upon  in  either  of  two  ways — as  standards  for  all 
time,  or  as  foundations  on  which  to  build  for  the  fu- 
ture. The  civilized  man  rejoices  in  foundations 
lie  builds  them  deep  and  strong,  and  erects  upon 
them  some  noble  superstructure.  The  savage  puts 
up  his  great  stone  circle,  mighty  and  wonderful  per- 
haps, but  complete  in  itself  and  of  no  manner  of  use. 

So  I  ask  you,  what  is  our  collection  of  records  to 
be — a  stone  circle  or  a  foundation? 

Now  the  records  themselves  the  books  Can 
never  determine  this  any  more  than  the  great  mono- 
lith can  determine  whether  it  is  going  into  a  Sione- 
henge  or  into  the  foundation  of  a  Parthenon.  It  i^ 
what,  we  do  to  the  books — to  and  with  them  that 
matters. 

The  world  would  never  move  on  without  records 
of  the  progress  thai  had  already  been  made.  du>t 
as  surely,  it  would  never  move  on  by  reliance  on 
those  records  alone.  What  we  have  accomplished 
brings  US  merely  to  a  mile  stone  in  the  path  of  prog 
ress.  To  reach  a  given  point,  one  must  pass  the 
mile   stones   on    the    way,    but    they    must    be    passed 


360  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

and  left  behind.  We  shall  never  get  anywhere  mere- 
ly l>y  sitting'  down  upon  any  of  them.  To  make  a 
personal  application  to  yourselves,  you  will  never 
make  good  librarians  unless  you  master  what  good 
librarians  before  you  have  learned  and  taught.  But 
just  as  certainly,  you  will  never  be  good  librarians 
if  you  regard  this  as  a  definite  stopping  point.  The 
trouble  with  most  of  our  education  is  that  it  is  static 
and  not  dynamic;  it  looks  backward,  not  forward; 
it  teaches  what  has  already  been  accomplished  and 
fails  to  equip  the  student  for  devising  and  accom- 
plishing something  further,  on  his  own  account. 

I  am  warning  you  in  the  midst  of  a  course  intend- 
ed to  fit  you  for  librarianship  that  the  course  alone 
will  not  so  fit  you.  But  it  will  start  you— and  a 
start  in  the  right  direction  is  of  great  value — nay, 
it  is  indispensable.  When  the  fielder  throws  the  ball 
directly  into  the  baseman's  hands  there  is  a  prelim- 
inary motion  of  his  arm.  At  the  end  of  that  motion 
the  ball  begins  its  flight;  its  start  has  enabled  it  to 
go  straight,  Your  library  course  will  be  the  throw 
that  enables  you  to  go  straight  to  the  mark,  but  you 
must  not  forget  that  the  whole  flight  remains  to  be 
made.  My  metaphor  is  a  bad  one.  The  ball  has  no 
power  to  adjust  or  alter  its  course.  You  have  that 
power;  you  can  better  a  good  start,  or  you  can  nul- 
lify it.  You  may  even  hit  the  mark  after  you  have 
been  started  in  the  wrong  direction;  but  to  say  this 
is  by  no  means  to  recommend  a  wrong  start. 

All  this  is  a  series  of  platitudes;  but  to  insist  on 
the  obvious  is  often  useful.  There  are  so  many  ob- 
vious things  that  we  are  apt  to  neglect  some  of  the 
most  necessary,  just  as  we  may  fail  to  see  a  sign  on 
a  building  because  it  is  all  plastered  with  signs. 
Nothing  is  more  common  than  to  assume  that  a  per- 
iod of  formal  education,  general  or  special,  makes  its 


A    MESSAGE    TO    BEGINNERS  361 

subject  "fit",  either  for  life  or  fop  a  vocation.    Sum.' 

never  get  over  tliis  idea  and  f;iil  in  consequence; 
some  discover  their  mistake  and  blame  their  train- 
ing because  it  does  not  do  what  it  can  not  do  and 
was  not  intended  to  do.  Formal  training  trains  "in- 
to start  :  it  makes  <»n<'  tit  to  run  tin-  race.  The  pace  is 
not  won  when  the  training  lias  ended;  it  lias  not 
even  begun.  The  man  with  ;>  B.  A.  degree  is  not 
ready  to  tackle  the  problems  of  life  and  vanquish 
them.  The  graduate  in  law  or  medicine  is  not  a 
trained  lawyer  or  physician,  and  when  yon  have  com- 
pleted your  library  course  you  will  not  lie  trained 
librarians.  Von  will  have  been  started  right,  tin* 
rest  of  your  training  will  depend  on  your  reaction 
to  the  forces,  the  stimuli,  that  surround  yon  on  all 
sides. 

What  the  executive  officer  is  looking  for  all  over 
the  world  is  initiative,  guided  by  common  sense;  bur 
it  is  rare.  Possibly  our  education  fails  to  develop  it; 
possibly  no  system  of  education  con  Id  develop  it. 
But  it  exists;  and  we  are  all  happy  when  we  find  it. 
Throwing  out  of  consideration  the  really  lazy,  ig- 
norant or  incompetent  assistant,  competent  subordi- 
nates may  be  of  three  kinds  first,  lie  who  has  been 
trained  to  do  certain  things  in  certain  ways  and  con- 
tinues to  do  only  those  things  in  only  those  ways. 
not.  realizing  the  possibility  of  change  or  improve- 
ment; secondly,  he  who  does  realize  this  possibility 
but.  has  been  taught,  or  at  any  rate  believes,  that  it 
is  not  his  place,  but  only  his  superior's,  to  take  ac- 
tive steps  toward  something  more  or  better;  and 
thirdly  he  win*  both  realizes  and  acts,  who  does  what 
he  can  to  see  thai  such  steps  as  he  can  properly  take 
to  improve  matters  are  taken  and  that  BUCh  as  he 
can  not  take  of  his  own  accord  arc  suggested,  in  a 
proper  manner,   to  his  superior.      If   I   were  asked   to 


362  LIBKARY    ESSAYS 

sum  up,  in  a  few  words,  the  things  that  differentiate 
a  well  run  from  a  poorly  run  institution  I  should  say, 
first,  the  existence  of  a  staff  composed  of  persons  of 
this  third  variety,  and  secondly  a  chief  executive  who 
appreciates  and  uses  them.  A  progressive  executive 
with  a  staff  of  assistants  who  faithfully  obey  orders 
and  do  nothing  more  will  not  go  far.  His  institu- 
tion may  make  no  mistakes;  it  may  run  like  a  ma- 
chine, but  it  will  have  the  faults  of  a  machine — its 
product  will  be  machine  made.  With  a  live  staff 
and  a  poor  executive  there  will  be  a  maximum  of 
mistakes,  absurd  and  ill-judged  plans — a  failure  to 
co-ordinate  effort  in  different  lines.  With  plenty  of 
initiative  in  the  staff,  and  with  an  executive  to  se- 
lect, restrain,  encourage  and  control,  we  have  an  ap- 
proach to  the  work  of  a  single  living  organism,  the 
most  perfect  tool  of  evolution. 

While  this  means  the  encouragement  of  sugges- 
tion it  also  means  rejection  and  selection.  It  means 
that  while  the  staff  will  have  to  bear  disappointment 
with  good  nature  and  without  diminution  of  initia- 
tive, the  executive,  on  his  part,  must  realize  that  a 
hundred  impractical  suggestions  do  not  disprove  the 
possibility,  or  even  the  probability,  that  the  assist- 
ant who  makes  them  may  ultimately  offer  some  plan, 
method,  or  device  of  great  value.  Some  of  the  great- 
est improvements  in  library  service  are  due  to  per- 
sons with  an  imagination  and  an  initiative  especially 
prone  to  run  wild  in  impractical  suggestions. 

I  realize  that  I  may  be  regarded  as  tossing  a  fire- 
brand among  you  when  I  tell  you  to  develop  your 
initiative.  An  unwise  or  uncontrolled  initiative  may 
do  harm,  but  I  fervently  believe  that  greater  harm  is 
done  every  day  by  the  lack  of  all  initiative.  Better 
than  any  stagnant  pool  is  a  running  stream,  though 
it  break  bounds  and  waste  itself  in  foam  and  spray. 


A    MESSAGE    TO    BEGINNEBS 

There  may  be  those  who  will  say:  Let  the  student 
first  learn  to  obey  without  question;  when  he  has 
done  this  it  will  be  time  to  talk  to  him  about  initia- 
tive. Alas:  that  will  also  be  the  time  when  be  has 
lost  the  chance  to  develop  it  intelligently.  No,  the 
accepted  standards  and  the  ways  of  progress  must 
be  assimilated  at  one  time.  Rather  than  unquestion- 
ing obedience  to  an  order,  a  rule  or  a  formula,  let  US 
have  appreciation  of  the  reason  for  it  and  disobedi- 
ence whenever  a  breaking  of  the  letter  may  keep  US 
more  closely  to  the  spirit. 

I  can  assure  yon  that  yon  will  make  Letter  assist 
ants  if  this  is  your  temperament,  that  librarians  are 
looking  earnestly  for    more   of   this    kind,    rejoicing 
when   they  see  the    spark    of    life    among    the    dead 
wheels  and  cogs  of  the  library  machinery,  determined 
to  give  any  one  who  shows  it  an  opportunity  to  show 
more  of  it,  by  promoting  him  to  a  place  of  greater 
effort  and  of  higher  responsibility  and  service.   When 
such  a  promotion  comes,  perhaps  over  the  heads  of 
others  with  better  training  and    longer  experience, 
there  is  often  wonder  and  a  disposition  to  explain  it 
all  by  "favoritism".    And    viewed    from   the   proper 
angle,  this  is  correct;  every  chief  librarian   has  his 
favorites;  they  are  those  on  whom   ii«-  has  learned 
that  he  can  depend,  not  only  for  solid  and  accurate 
knowledge  of   facts  and    methods   but    also   for  quick 
and  ready  response  io  the  slightest  change  of  condi- 
tions— for  appreciation  of  what  is  needed  in  a  given 
set  of  unusual  circumstances  and  resourcefulness  in 
devising  new  methods  or  modifying  old  ones  to  meet 
the  emergency     what   I   have  already  summed  up  in 
the  (me  word  initiative. 

Every  teacher,  and  every  student  knows  that  a 
good  arithmetician  may  fail  ntt«  rl\  when  he  comes 
to  state  and  solve  problems  in  algebra.    His  sue* 


364  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

has  been  due  to  the  memorizing  of  rules  and  their 
application.  When  he  is  confronted  with  the  neces- 
sity of  putting  into  mathematical  symbols  the  fact 
that  A,  B  and  C  can  do  a  piece  of  work  in  3,  4  and 
5  days,  respectively,  he  is  stumped  because  an  entire- 
ly different  sort  of  demand  is  made  on  his  intelli- 
gence. And  when  his  teacher  explains  how  the  state- 
ment may  be  made,  although  he  has  learned  how  to 
state  that  particular  class  of  problems,  he  is  just 
as  much  at  sea  when  he  is  confronted  with  the  ques- 
tion of  how  soon  after  12  o'clock  the  hands  of  a 
watch  will  again  be  together  on  the  dial. 

In  other  words,  he  has  left  the  land  of  rules  and 
entered  the  region  of  common  sense.  If  he  is  bright, 
he  very  soon  realizes  that  all  mathematics  is  common 
sense;  that  rules  are  very  useful  indeed,  but  only  as 
short  cuts  to  mechanical  processes. 

So,  at  least  so  I  trust,  all  the  methods  and  tools 
of  library  work  are  based  on  common  sense — cata- 
logues and  charging  systems  and  classifications  are 
very  useful  indeed,  but  only  as  short  cuts  to  certain 
results  that  would  otherwise  not  be  achieved  or 
would  be  arrived  at  too  late  or  too  confusedly.  We 
must  learn  all  about  these,  but  the  time  will  come 
when  we  shall  leave  the  library  school  and  enter  the 
library.  Here  no  sort  of  rule,  formula,  method  or 
process  will  suffice  for  us,  essential  though  they  all 
are;  if  we  are  to  make  good  we  must  add  common 
sense,  adaptability,  resourcefulness,  initiative. 

Possibly  you  think  that  I  have  been  applying  the 
principle  of  conflict  between  progression  and  stagna- 
tion somewhat  carelessly — now  to  your  own  train- 
ing as  librarians  and  again  to  the  service  rendered 
by  the  library  itself.  In  truth  these  are  intimately 
connected.  Progressive  assistants  make  a  progres- 
sive library.     A  staff  that  does  its  work  mechanical- 


A    MESSAGE   TO    BEGINNERS  365 

lv  will  operate  a  library  without  initiative  If  your 
habit  of  mind  has  grown  to  be  a  habit  of  regarding 
all  the  technical  detail  of  librarj  work  as  part  of 
nature's  law,  von  will  be  Bhocked  at  a  suggestion 
that  the  library  of  which  von  are  a  part  Bhould  un- 
dertake senile  public  Bervice  that  a  library  never  un- 
dertook before. 

Yon  may  know  already — yon  certainly  will  know 
soon — that  this  question  of  the  extension  or  limita- 
tion of  library  service  is  still  a  burning  one  in  many 
minds.  Libraries  to-day  are  .loin-  ;i  thousand  things 
that  no  one  of  them  would  have  thought  of  doing 
fifty  years  ago.  That  some  of  these  things  are  fool- 
ish or  ill  advised  I  have  no  doubt.  We  now  occasion- 
ally hear  it  said  that  there  should  be  some  authorita- 
tive statement  or  agreement  on  what  public  libra- 
ries, at  any  rate,  ought  to  do  and  what  they  ought 
not  to  do.  But  we  Americans  do  not  take  kindly  to 
limitations  of  this  sort,  although  they  are  familiar 
in  countries  where  service  of  all  kinds  is  more  stand- 
ardized. We  read  in  a  recent  magazine  article  of 
the  trials  of  Mrs.  James  Russell  Lowell  with  English 
servants,  when  her  husband  was  American  minister 
in  London.  Wishing  to  have  a  loose  corner  of  carpet 
nailed  down,  she  called  on  one  after  another  of  her 
domestic  staff,  only  to  i><-  told  that  tin-  clearly-defined 
duties  of  each  did  not  admit  of  that  particular  item 
of  service.  She  finally  lined  them  up  on  one  side  of 
the  room,  tacked  down  the  carpet  herself  and  then 
discharged  every  on.-  of  them.  This  sort  <>f  thing 
does  not  seem  to  Americans  like  efficiency.     If  some 

needed  hit  of  service  in  an  American  town  remains 
undone,  and  church  and  school  and  library  all  look 
the  other  way  because  it  dors  not   fall  within  a  care- 

fully-limited  sphere  of  duty  which  each  has  assigned 

to   itself,   we   shall    connt    them    all    Nameworthy 


366  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

pecially  if  it  shall  appear  that  one  of  them  is  equipped 
to  perform  that  particular  service  easily,  cheap- 
ly and  well.  The  church  and  the  school  have  both 
taken  this  view,  and  the  modern  extension  of  the 
library's  functions  shows  that  it  has  been  doing  like- 
wise. It  has  gone  further  than  either  of  the  others, 
probably,  because  it  finds  itself  in  many  ways  better 
equipped  for  the  doing  of  civic  odd  jobs.  It  is  re- 
lated of  a  railway  manager  that  an  employe  whose 
work  was  over  once  asked  him  for  a  free  ticket  home. 
The  manager  refused,  saying:  "If  you  had  been  work- 
ing for  a  farmer  you  would  hardly  expect  him  to 
hitch  up  and  drive  you  home,  would  you?"  "No", 
said  the  man,  "but  if  he  had  a  rig  already  hitched 
up  and  ready  to  start,  and  he  was  going  my  way,  I 
should  call  him  darned  mean  if  he  didn't  take  me 
along." 

In  many  eases  the  library  has  been  hitched  up 
and  standing  at  the  door  when  the  necessity  has 
arisen,  and  it  has  been  "going  the  same  way" — in 
other  words,  the  need  of  the  community  is  nearly 
related  to  the  work  that  the  community's  support  has 
already  enabled  it  to  do.  Under  these  circumstances 
it  is  in  the  position  of  Coleridge's  Wedding  Guest — 
it  "can  not  chuse  but  hear". 

"When  we  look  at  the  library's  recent  history,  we 
shall  see  that  it  is  in  precisely  this  way  that  it  has 
taken  on  all  its  additional  functions.  The  old  libra- 
ries lent  no  books.  But  home  use  of  books  seemed 
presently  desirable.  After  experimenting  with  sepa- 
rate institutions  for  this  kind  of  service,  we  have  all 
come  around  to  considering  it  a  legitimate  function 
of  the  Public  Library.  Libraries  gave  no  attention 
to  children.  When  this  became  necessary,  another 
function  was  added.  These  and  other  duties  were 
very  closely  related  to  the  library's  older  functions. 


A    MESSAGE    TO    BEGINNERS  367 

Soon  there  was  a  further  step,  in  making  which  the 
library  took  over  services  whose  connection  with  its 
primary  business  was  not  so  clear.  To  draw  an  ei 
ample  from  what  is  most  familiar  to  me  at  present, 
in  the  St.  Louis  Public  Library  von  will  find  a  room 
Cor  ait  exhibits,  collections  of  post-cards  and  textile 
fabrics,  a  card  index  to  current  Lectures,  exhibitions 
and  concerts,  a  public  writing-room  with  free  note 
paper  and  envelopes,  a  class  of  young  women,  study- 
ing, like  yourselves,  to  be  librarians;  meeting-pla 
for  all  sorts  of  clubs  and  groups,  civic,  educational, 
social,  political  and  religious;  a  photographic  copy- 
ing machine,  placed  at  public  disposal  at  the  cost  of 
operation;  lunch-rooms  and  rest-rooms  for  the  staff; 
a  garage,  with  automobiles  in  it.  not  to  speak  of  an 
extensive  telephone  switchboard,  a  paint-shop,  ;i  car- 
penter shop,  and  a  power-plant.     Not    oi f    these 

things,  I  believe,  would  von  have  found  in  a  large 
library  fifty  years  ago,  and  yet  ihe\  are  probably  all, 
in  one  shape  or  another,  to  be  found  in  all  Large  mod 
era  American  libraries.  They  are  extensions  of  func- 
tion; in  many  eases  ir  would  be  hard  to  justify  them 
on  general  principles.  Why  should  a  library  alio* 
young  people  to  dance,  or  men  to  hold  a  political 
meeting  or  the  neighbors  to  exhibit  local  products, 
in  its  building?  Our  English  friends  hold  thai  it  is 
the  heighl  of  absurdity  to  do  so.  Doubtless  we 
should  be  absurd  if  we  should  attempt  to  formulate 
a  principle  about  what  cognate  activities  might  prop- 
erly be  admitted  to  the  library  and  should  include 
such  things  as  these,  lint  that  is  not  the  way  in 
which  it  .ill  came  about.  There  was  some  group  of 
citizens,  anxious  to  engage  in  some  activity,  benefi- 
cial to  themselves  and  to  the  community.  They 
wanted  a  place  to  meet.  Church  and  school,  for  one 
reason   or  another,   real   or   imaginary,   were  out   of 


308  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

the  question,  and  they  came  to  the  library.  The  Li- 
brary had  an  unoccupied  room,  heated  and  lighted. 
It  had  the  choice  of  locking  out  citizens  of  the  com- 
munity that  were  supporting  it  out  of  the  public 
funds,  or  of  admitting  them.  Put  in  this  way  the 
library's  duty  seems  clear  enough.  But  there  is  a 
step  further  still.  Some  demands  for  help  are  so 
old  that  the  knocking  at  the  door  has  passed  out  of 
the  consciousness  of  both  those  who  knock  and  those 
who  hear.  In  this  case  it  becomes  necessary  for  the 
library  to  undertake  what  a  recent  scientific  writer 
calls  the  "re-education  of  its  attentive  control". 
When  an  institution  reaches  the  conclusion  that  it 
is  doing  all  that  it  can,  or  all  that  the  community 
can  properly  ask  of  it,  the  chances  are  that  it  is  los- 
ing its  ability  to  concentrate.  Its  duty  is  to  fix  its 
attention  on  one  element  of  community  life  after 
another  and  ask  itself  whether  it  is  not  overlooking 
some  really  insistent  demand  for  help. 

I  well  remember  when,  in  the  New  York  Public 
Library  we  used  complacently  to  explain  our  failure 
to  purchase  Hungarian  books  for  circulation  by  say- 
ing that  there  was  no  demand  for  them.  But  the  time 
came  when  we  put  in  a  few  hundred  books  in  that 
tongue.  At  once  it  became  evident  that  we  needed 
not  hundreds  but  thousands.  Hungarians  came  to 
us  from  far  distant  parts  of  the  city  only  to  find 
empty  shelves.  This  overwhelming  demand  had  been 
present  all  the  time;  only  it  was  latent.  It  lacked 
active  expression,  simply  because  our  lack  of  Hun- 
garian books  was  a  well  known  fact.  Since  then 
when  librarians  tell  me  that  their  libraries  have  no 
books  in  Kuthenian,  or  on  sanitary  plumbing,  no  out- 
of-town  directories  or  no  prints  for  circulation,  be-, 
cause  "there  is  no  demand  for  them",  I  am  inclined 
to  smile.     No  matter  how  near  you  may  be  to  dying 


A    MESSAGE   TO    BEGINNERS 

of  thirst,  you  will  not  be  Likely  to  visit  an  obvio 
*]ry  Band-bank  in  search  of  water. 

The  intelligent  search  for  these  latent  demands 

requires  the  kind  of  interested  ability  that  I  have 
already  spoken  of  as  one  of  the  library's  chief  needs 
The  library  must  keep  on  growing  if  it  is  to  live.  It 
must  take  on  new  functions,  and  when  it  assumes 
some  new  duty,  sonic  group  in  the  community  must 
exclaim  "Of  course*!  that  is  just  what  we  have  been 
wanting  all  tin*  time".  And  nt  the  same  time  there 
will  always  he  some  outworn  function  that  may  If 
dropped  oil'  quietly  to  make  room  for  the  new. 

Only  the  librarian  must  not  mistake  unintelligent 
imitation  for  initative.  Imitation  in  itself  is  unob- 
jectionable. Il'what  someone  else  has  devised  is  ob- 
viously the  very  thing  you  have  been  looking  for  to 
solve  your  problem,  you  would  only  waste  energy 
in  trying  to  devise  something  else.  But  if  you  think 
you  can  create  in  your  community  a  library  as  good, 
we  will  say,  as  .Mr.  Dana's  in  Newark,  or  .Mi'.  Brett's 
in  Cleveland  or  Mr.  Jennings'  in  Seattle,  simply  by 
copying  every  detail  of  those  institutions,  you  are  as 
foolish  as  if  you  thought  you  could  make  yourself 
look  like  your  well-dressed  friend  simply  by  borrow 
ing  his  clothes.  The  library  must  tit  the  community ; 
also,  in  sonic  respects,  the  librarian.  I  have  recently 
visited  Miss  llewins'  office  in  the  Hartford  Public 
Library.  1  think  it  is  the  most  fascinating  office  a 
librarian  ever  occupied.  But  I  certainly  shall  not 
go  home  to  St.  Louis  and  try  to  make  mine  look  like 
it. 

This    warning   applies    particularly     to   the   added 

functions  of  which  we   have   been    speaking   above. 

They  should   be  assumed   in   response  to  a   demand 
expressed   or    latent.      The   demand    may    be   obvious 
and  insistent  in  one  library  and  non-existent   in  an 


LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

other.  If  yon  suspect  a  latent  demand,  experiment 
will  generally  reveal  or  disprove  its  existence,  just 
as  those  few  hundreds  of  Hungarian  books  brought 
out  the  demand  for  the  present  thousands.  We  have 
on  the  east  side  of  our  library  a  broad  terrace,  bal- 
ustraded,  elevated  above  the  street,  paved  with  brick 
and  stone.  It  is  shady  on  summer  afternoons,  and 
swept  by  the  south  breeze.  What  an  ideal  place  to 
read  in  the  open  air,  instead  of  in  the  stuffy  build- 
ing-! We  equipped  it  with  tables  and  chairs,  relaxed 
the  rules  to  make  it  easy  to  take  books  and  maga- 
zines there,  did  everything  in  our  power  to  encourage 
terrace  leaders.  The  public  press  saw  and  approved. 
Everything  worked  well,  except  that  nobody  came! 
A  failure,  do  yon  say?  Not  at  all.  We  had  tried 
our  experiment,  tested  for  our  possible  latent  de- 
mand and  found  that  there  was  none.  We  had  asked 
our  question  and  received  our  answer.  There  are  no 
1  ables  and  chairs  on  that  terrace  to-day,  but  we  are 
not  discouraged:  why  should  we  be?  A  real  experi- 
ment never  fails:  you  always  get  your  answer — yes 
or  no.  Of  course  if  your  experiment  is  a  sham,  and 
you  have  assumed  that  the  answer  is  to  be  the  one 
that  you  want,  you  may  be  disappointed. 

It  is  always  a  pleasure  to  watch  things  grow,  to 
be  able  to  keep  them  on  and  guide  their  growth  in 
useful  directions.  A  library  is  no  exception  to  the 
rule.  Even  growth  in  size — the  simplest  kind — has 
its  satisfactions,  but  extension  of  service  is  still  more 
interesting.  It  is  well  that  there  should  be  a  little 
mystery  between  the  librarian  and  his  public — a  con- 
sciousness of  problems  yet  to  solve,  of  service  yet  to 
be  rendered.  It  is  well  that  he  should  be  on  the  look- 
out for  latent  demands — those  hungers  and  thirsts 
that  he  knows  must  exist  somewhere  and  that  he  is 
eager  to  satisfy;  it  is  well  that  his  community  should 


A   MESSAGE    TO    BEGINNERS  371 

regard  the  library  as  a  place  with  opportunity  and 
willingness  for  service  yel  anrevealed  as  ;i  reservoir 
of  favors  yel  unbestowed.  This  is  a  living  relation, 
not  one  of  mere  juxtaposition.     I   never  envied  the 

kind  of  service  that  old  Atlas  did  the  world,  in  stand- 
ing eternally  with  it  on  his  shoulders.     Thai  was  an 
image  of  dull,  burdensome  despair.     How  much  bet- 
ter our  modern  vision  of  a  spinning  globe,  circling 
through  space,  with  all  its  brother  and  sister  gl< 
dancing   around    it!     And    however    miraculous 
seems,   we  know    that   whenever  we  get    up  and   walk 
across  the  room  there  is  a  tiny  adjustment  of  bala 
throughout  the  whole  vast  system.    There  are  social 
balances,  too,  as  well  as  celestial,  and  when  the  li- 
brary puts  out  its  foot  to  take  a  forward  step,  i 
lieve  that  they  all  respond. 

These  things  that  libraries  are  doing  have  their 
part  in  the  vast  social  adjustments  in  the  midst  of 
which  we  live.  Some  day  a  social  historian  will  arise 
to  describe  them  and  set  them  in  their  place.  I  am 
frequently  disappointed  when  1  take  ap  some  book 
describing  a  movement  or  an  application  of  en 
in  which  1  know  that,  the  library  has  borne  a  part, 
to  hud  that  its  share  has  been  absolutely  without 
recognition;  that  the  word  "library"  is  not  even  in 
the   C0pi0US   index.      We    have   been    busy   doing  thi 

— here  in  the  seclusion  of  the  library  family  we  may 

that  they  have  been  things  worth  the  doing. 
Some  day  we.  too.  shall  have  our  Homer  or  our  .Mil- 
ton. 

Let  me  remind  you  that  this  has  ;ill  been  illue 
the  of  my  principle  that   library  service,  like  even; 
Other  kind  of  mundane  activity,    is    ;i     phase    <-t'    the 
eternal    struggle    hetwe-a    keeping   still    and    getting 
somewhere  else.     At  tie 

the  most  thoughtful  of  current   English  writers,  Mr. 


372  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

-I.  1>.  Beresford;  states  the  issue  thus  (I  quote  from 
memory)  :  "Virtue  is  only  continued  effort;  a  boast 
of  success  is  really  a  confession  of  failure".  Of 
course,  continuance  of  effort,  virtuous  though  it  may 
be,  will  be  of  little  avail  without  ability,  intelligence, 
common-sense — at  least  a  modicum  of  those  quali- 
ties whose  complete  combination  makes  up  that 
wholly  impossible  creature,  the  Perfect  Librarian. 
Training  will  not  give  you  these — the  Almighty  be- 
stows them  at  our  birth — but  it  will  develop  such  as 
you  have  already — and  none  of  us  lacks  all  of  them. 
Keep  on  moving,  then,  and  when  you  score  a 
point,  rejoice  only  because  it  proves  that  scoring  is 
one  of  your  possibilities,  and  that  you  are  likely  to 
score  many  others  before  your  race  is  run. 


LUCK    IN  THE   LIBRARY 

"It  is  better  to  be  born  lucky  than   rich'',  says 
the  old  proverb.     "Is  he  lucky?'*     Nap.. icon  used  bo 
ask  when  anyone  was  recommended  to  him.     Litera- 
ture is  full  of  allusions  to  luck;  history  is  full  of  the 
belief  in  it  and  of  the  influence  of  that  belief  on  the 
course  of  events.     Do  I    believe    in    luck?     Most  as- 
suredly, if  you  will  allow  me  to  frame  my  owe  def- 
inition.   One  of  the  most  important  and  fascinating 
branches    of    modern    mathematics — the    theory    of 
chances  or    probabilities,    deals    with    what     may    be 
called  luck,  and  with  its  laws.     Chance,  we  are  told, 
is  "the  totality  of  unconsidered   causes".      When   an 
event  is  conditioned  entirely  by  chance   we  say  that 
it  came  about  by   "luck",  though    the   unconsidered 
causes  are  there  just  the  same.     A    tyrant,   we   will 
say,  stakes  his  victim's  life  on    the    cast    of    a    die. 
Whether  he  perishes  or  not   is  solely    a     matter    of 
good  or  bad  "luck".     When  a     basket    contains    ten 
marbles,  of  which  five  are  black  and  five  are  white 
we  know  that  in  the  long  run   the  number  of  black 
and   while   marbles   drawn    at    random    tends    toward 
equality,  and   we    express    this  by    savin-     that     the 
chance  of  drawing  either   black    or   white   is   one    in 
two,  or   ' ...      Whether  black  or  white  appears  at   any 
single  drawing  is  purely  a  matter  of  luck.     In  this 
sense,   luck   confronts   us  at    every    turn,   and    no  one 
can  deny  its  existence.    Now    let  us  go  a  little  further. 
May  chance  happenings  lie  ail.-,  ted  h\  circumstances 
that  have  no  apparent  connection  with  them?   Doubt- 
less; but  so  far  as  they  are  they  are  no  longer  BUD- 


374  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

ject  to  the  laws  of  chance.  It  is  because  we  know 
this  that  we  are  able  to  study  nature  by  experiment 
If  in  a  long  series  of  drawings,  from  a  basket  con- 
taining an  equal  number  of  black  and  white  marbles, 
we  draw  chiefly  black,  we  recognize  at  once  the  fact 
that  some  cause,  distinct  from  the  mass  of  slight  and 
unconsidered  causes  whose  combined  action  we  know 
as  "chance",  is  acting.  We  try  at  once  to  get  at  that 
cause  by  varying  the  conditions.  If  we  find,  for  in- 
stance, that  by  plunging  the  hand  deeper  into  the 
basket  we  get  white  balls  as  well  as  black,  we  con- 
clude that  the  white  balls  were  heavier  and  so 
settled  to  the  bottom  when  the  mass  was  shaken.  So 
it  may  be  that  a  particular  series  of  happenings  may 
be  affected  by  locality,  by  personality  or  by  season. 
So  far  as  this  is  true,  chance  or  "luck"  has  ceased  to 
act  and  we  must  look  for  the  cause.  These,  how- 
ever, are  precisely  the  circumstances  in  which  many 
persons  are  accustomed  to  invoke  a  luck  of  higher 
grade  and  more  potent  qualities,  a  luck  that  clings 
to  person,  place,  or  time.  If  in  a  series  of  happen- 
ings more  turn  out  to  the  advantage  of  a  particular 
person  than  pure  chance  would  warrant,  he  is  said 
to  be  "lucky".  In  other  words,  the  necessity  of  as- 
signing a  cause  is  recognized,  and  it  is  easier  to  call 
this  cause  "luck"  than  to  search  for  it  and  to  identify 
it.  I  am  not  sure  that  we  are  right  in  objecting  to 
this  procedure.  We  do  not  object  to  lumping  to- 
gether the  totality  of  unconsidered  causes  and  call- 
ing them  "chance".  It  is  legitimate  to  do  so  when 
it  is  impossible  to  discover  and  treat  them  separately. 
In  like  manner  it  may  be  considered  proper  to  call  a 
man  "lucky"  when  the  causes  of  his  success  evade 
detection,  though  we  may  be  sure  that  they  exist. 
It  is  in  this  sense  that  it  is  better  to  be  born  lucky 
than  rich.     This  was  what  Napoleon  meant,  I  have 


LUCK    IX   THE    LIBRARY 

no  doubt,  by  his  question,  "la  lie  lucky?"    Be  might 

have  said,  "Is  he  uniformly  successful,  for  peas 
that  do  not  lie  on  the  surface?  If  so,  we  must  as- 
sume the  existence  of  causes,  though  we  cannot  de 
tect  them.  Doubtless  he  will  continue  to  succeed, 
even  if  we  can  not  always  tell  why.  That  is  the  kind 
of  man  that  I  prefer." 

Just  a  little  philology  here  may  throw  additional 
light  on  our  subject  I  have  said  that  Napoleon's 
question  was,  "Is  he  lucky?"  Now  of  course  Napo- 
leon did  not  use  these  words,  because  they  are  Eng- 
lish words,  and  he  spoke  in  French.  What  he  said, 
doubtless,  was  "E%t-il  Keureux?"  We  translate  heur- 
eux  in  two  ways,  "happy"  ami  "fortunate",  but  they 
are  really  the  same,  for  happy  means  "of  good  hap", 
or  good  fortune.  When  we  say  "by  a  happy  chance", 
we  go  back  to  this  primitive  meaning.  The  word 
heureux  is  derived  by  the  French  lexicographers 
from  the  Latin  cmgurium,  so  that  its  basic  meaning 
is  "of  good  augury."  I  think  you  will  agree  with  me 
that  there  is  something  more  here  than  mere  chance 
The  augur's  business  was  to  ascertain  the  will  of  the 
gods,  and  all  through  we  have  the  idea  of  some  im- 
pelling force  that  makes  things  turn  out  as  they  do 
If  this  force,  whatever  it  was,  was  on  the  side  of  the 
candidate,  Napoleon  wanted  him. 

As  for  our  word  "luck"   itself,   it    is  purely   Teu- 
tonic and  our  lexicographers  do  not  trace  it  beyond 

earlier  forms,     it  should  be  noted,  however,  thai 
in  many  of  these,  as  in  the  modern  German  gliick, it 
means  happiness  ;is  well  as  chance.     This  wide  .1^ 
sociation  of  ideas  may  be  taken  to  mean  that  happi- 
ness was  regarded  by  our  forefathers  as  always  the 
sport  of  chance;  but    I  prefer  to  regard  it  as  an  • 
dence  that  a  life  in  which  everything  is  for  the 
— where  no  mistakes  are  made  and  where  all   is 


376  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

sailing  and  successful  outcome,  is  dependent  on  some 
fundamental  cause. 

These  "lucky  devils",  that  we  see  all  about  us — 
the  ones  who  "always  fall  right-side-up' —  the  men 
whose  touch  turns  everything  into  gold— the  college 
students  who  pass  examinations  because  the  ques- 
tions happened  to  be  the  very  ones  they  knew— all 
these  are  people  whose  "luck"  can  usually  be  depend- 
ed on  to  last.  It  is  all  right  to  explain  their  success 
by  calling  them  "lucky",  so  long  as  we  do  not  forget 
that  this  is  merely  a  word  to  cloak  our  ignorance  of 
the  real  causes. 

The  trouble  is  that  this  is  what  we  do  often  for- 
get. We  have  been  forgetting  it  since  the  dawn  of 
civilization,  and  we  inherit  our  forgetfulness  from 
the  twilight  of  ignorance  that  preceded  it.  If  the 
cause  of  a  man's  success  was  not  immediately  appar- 
ent, he  must,  it  was  concluded,  have  effected  it  by 
magic  or  sorcery,  or  he  was  in  league  with  the  Devil, 
or  Fortuna  or  some  other  goddess  guided  his  hand. 
If  he  was  a  consistent  failure,  someone  had  hoodooed 
him,  or  blasted  him  with  the  evil  eye,  or  worked  up- 
on him  some  magical  charm,  or  the  fickle  goddess 
had  turned  her  back  on  him.  Nowadays  we  simply 
say  "lucky  dog !"  or  "unlucky  dog !"  and  let  it  go  at 
that;  but  the  words  carry  with  them  the  meaning 
that  something  occult  is  at  work — a  meaning  quite 
as  unreasonable  as  the  specific  supernatural  causes 
assigned  in  earlier  days,  and  possibly  still  more  ob- 
jectionable. 

I  am  quite  willing  to  recognize  that  Jones  is 
"lucky".  His  success  is  due  to  something  that  I  can 
not  detect;  in  fact,  he  seems  to  me  rather  an  ordi- 
nary young  man.  He  may  possibly  not  understand, 
himself,  why  he  gets  ahead  so  fast.  He  may  believe 
that  there  is  something  occult  about  it.     Plenty  of 


LUCK    IN   THE    LIBRARY 

successful  men  have  believed  in  their  "stars"  and 
trusted  them,  and  this  worked  well  until  it  encour 
aged  them  to  be  reckless.  Luck  and  stars  are  all 
very  well  as  symbols;  but  they  will  not  perform  im- 
possibilities. 

So  far  I  have  not  openly  mentioned  the  public 
library,  but  I  have  been  thinking  of  it  a  good  deal, 
and  I  hope  that  you  have  also.  It  is  one  of  the  beau- 
ties of  public  library  work  that  the  points  at  which 
it  touches  life  in  general  are  many.  He  who  ia  given 
the  honor  of  addressing  librarians,  as  I  am  doing  ar 
present,  may  talk  about  pretty  much  what  he  plea 
when  he  begins,  serene  in  the  confidence  that  its  ap- 
plication to  library  work  will  not  only  be  reached  in 
good  time,  but  will  even  obtrude  itself  prematurely 
on  his  hearers. 

In  the  first  place,  I  believe  we  librarians  should 
ponder  that  question  of  Napoleon's — "Is  he  lucky?" 
and  should  make  it  part  of  our  tests  for  employment 
and  promotion,  asking  it  in  substance  of  the  can- 
didates themselves,  of  their  sponsors  and  of  the  in- 
stitutions where  they  gained  their  training  and  <\- 
perience. 

Extending  Shakespeare  a  little,  we  may  say  with 
Caesar,  "Let  me  have  men   about    me  who  arc  fat" 
fat  with  achievement.     Those  who  are  lean  and  hun- 
gry with  failure  are  not  for  me.     Where  the  cause  of 
achievement  or  failure  is  obvious,  this  attitude  needs 
no  defense.    I  believe  that  it  is  justifiable  where  tie- 
success  or  failure  is  generally  attributed  to  "luck" 
The  general  feeling   that   an    "unlucky   devil"    will 
probably  continue  to  be  unlucky  is  founded  on  the 
idea  that  his  ill  luck  is  due  to  something  more  than 
chance.     Whatever  it  is,  it  is  something  that  we  must 
and  should  reckon  with,  whether  it   is  visible  or  not 
even  whether  it  is  thinkable  or  not — certainly  wheth- 


378  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

er  the  person  concerned  is  responsible  for  it  or  not. 
He  may  be  in  no  sense  responsible  for  his  "bad  luck" 
any  more  than  he  is  for  a  physical  defect  such  as 
blindness  or  one-leggedness ;  but  all  these  things 
must  be  weighed  in  estimating  the  probable  value 
of  his  work. 

I  am  conscious  that  such  an  attitude  as  this  may, 
in  theory,  do  serious  injustice  to  the  man  whose  "ill 
luck"  is  really  due  to  pure  chance,  just  as  in  the  case 
of  the  man  who  throws  tails  ten  times  in  succession 
after  betting  on  heads.  Such  a  run  as  this  may  hap- 
pen; it  does  happen  in  fact  on  an  average  once  in 
1024  trials.  The  fact  that  there  are  1023  chances 
against  it  justifies  us  in  neglecting  to  take  it  into 
account  very  seriously.  I  suppose  that  the  chances 
against  a  man's  persistent  "bad  luck1'  being  due  to 
pure  hazard  are  very  many  millions  to  one.  I  am 
not  going  to  waste  any  tears  over  the  injustice  that 
I  or  you  or  anyone  else  might  do  in  this  way. 

I  once  heard  a  man  of  great  intelligence,  the  ex- 
president  of  a  small  college,  firmly  maintain  that  if 
one  had  a  basketful  of  letters  of  the  alphabet,  writ- 
ten on  cards,  and  dumped  them  all  out  on  the  floor, 
it  was  absolutely  impossible  that  they  should  be 
found  so  arranged,  we  will  say,  as  to  spell  out  Mil- 
ton's "Paradise  Lost".  Now  such  a  happening  is  ex- 
tremely unlikely,  but  the  chance  that  it  should  oc- 
cur can  be  calculated  mathematically  and  expressed 
in  figures.  The  arrangement  in  which  "Paradise 
Lost"  is  spelled  out,  however,  is  no  more  unlikely 
than  any  other  possible  arrangement,  and  some  one 
of  these  arrangements  is  bound  to  occur,  no  matter 
how  unlikely  any  particular  one  is  beforehand.  No 
one  of  them,  therefore  is  impossible,  including  Para- 
dise Lost.  Rut  J  admit  that  where  chances  are  so  ad- 
verse, we  may  use    the    word    "impossibility"    in    a 


LUCK    IX    THE    LIBRAKY 

rough  sense,  and  so  I  use  it  in  asserting  that  it  is 
impossible  for  persistent  "bad  lack"  to  be  due  to 

pure  chance. 

Just  here  we  may  consider  whether  ;i  man  may 
rise  above  ill-luck,  may  conquer  it,  may  turn  it  into 
good  fortune.      The  ancients  evidently   believed   that 

he  could;  that  is  why  they  represented  Fortuna's 
wheel  as  turning.  Its  rotation  may  not  only  "lower 
the  proud",  as  Tennyson  puts  it,  but  may  also  elevate 
the  humble — change  a  run  of  ill-luck  into  a  "lucky 
strike".  The  Psalmist  ascribes  both  these  functions 
to  the  Almighty  himself.  "Depoauit  potentes  de 
sede,  et  exaltavii  humiletf'.  All  this  was  occult  to 
them  of  old  time;  it  need  be  80  to  ns  only  in  the  smis.' 
that  occult  means  "hidden".  If  the  hidden  causes 
of  a  man's  ill  lack  may  be  revealed  to  him,  wholly  or 
partially,  by  study,  or  even  if  he  can  make  a  plausi- 
ble guess  at  them,  and  if  he  finds  that  they  are  with- 
in his  control,  he  can  of  course  mitigate  them  or  per- 
haps abolish  them.  1  greatly  fear  that  in  most  cases 
of  this  kind  they  are  beyond  his  regulation,  either 
because  they  are  congenital  or  because  they  are  due 
to  habits  so  ingrained  that  changing  them  is  impos- 
sible. The  wry  fact  that  he  attributes  his  failures 
to  ''luck"  shows  that  he  has  made  some  effort  !"  _  I 
at  the  cause  and  has  failed  in  that,  as  in  other  thinu> 
The  use  of  the  word  "hick"  enables  him  to  keep  his 
self-respect.  It  does  not,  however,  make  him  a  more 
valuable  assistant,  and  his  superiors  must  not  fail 
to  take  it  into  account   in  an  estimate  of  his  work. 

I  believe  that  some  inquiry  into  possible  physi- 
cal causes  may  repay  as.  Teachers  tell  ns  of  cases 
where  incredible  stupidity  turned  out  on  examina- 
tion to  be  due  to  deafness.  1  personally  knew  of  i 
maid  servant  whose  apparently  idiotic  actions  were 
caused  by  near-sightedness.     She  did  not   know 


LIBRAKY    ESSAYS 

girl— that  her  eyes  were  not  perfectly  normal.     In 
all  such  cases  treatment  of  the  physical   cause,  if 
it  is  treatable— alters  the  "run  of  luck"  at  once.    All 
of  our  libraries  should  have  medical  officers,  as  the 
New  York  Public  Library  has,  and  the  members  of 
the  staff   should    be    periodically    inspected.     There 
should  be  a  rigid  physical  examination  on  entrance. 
I  ask  you  to    consider,    in    this    connection,    the. 
career  of  Ulysses  S.  Grant,  which  has  always  seemed 
to  me  one  of  the  most  remarkable  in  our  history.    As 
I  walked  down  the  Gravois  Road  in  St.  Louis  the 
other  day,  along-  which  Grant  used  to  drive  his  loads 
of  wood  from  the  farm,  to  sell  in  the  city,  it  seemed 
as  if  I  could  see  the  stumpy  figure  clad  in  its  faded 
army  overcoat  seated  on   the  load  and  urging  his 
slow-going  mules  toward  St.  Louis,  then  far  away. 
If  there  ever  was  a  man  who  was  "down  and  out", 
it  was  Grant  at  this  time.     He  had  been  uniformly 
"unlucky".     He  had  had  his  chance — a  good  one — 
and  had  passed  it  by.     Opportunity,  which  we  are 
falsely  told  knocks  only  once  at  a  man's  door,  had 
sounded  her  call  and  he  had  made  no  adequate  re- 
sponse.    A  graduate  of  West  Point,  with  creditable 
service  in  the  Mexican  War,  with  good  connections 
by  birth  and  marriage,  here  he  was,  living  in  a  log 
cabin  on  a  small  farm,  hauling  wood  to  city  custom- 
ers.    Yet  just  three  years  later  this  man's  name  was 
the  best  known  in  the  country  and  had  gone  around 
the  world.     He  was  a  victorious  general  in  command 
of  armies.     A  few  years  more  and  he  was  President 
of  the  United   States.     He  was  uniformly  "lucky". 
His  "luck  had  changed".     What  made  it  change?     I 
can  not  find  that  Grant  the  successful  military  com- 
mander was  a  different  man  in  any  way  from  Grant 
the  farmer  and  teamster.     He  was  supremely  fitted 
for  military  command  under  a  particular  set  of  condi- 


LUCK    IX   THE    LIBRARY 

tions.  When  those  conditions  arose,  his  genius  took 
the  line  of  least  resistance.  Such  m  career  is  not 
unique.  We  learn  from  it  that  ill  link  may  be  simply 
negative — due,  not  to  active  causes  ili.it  force  one 
back,  but  simply  to  the  absence  of  the  conditions  un- 
der which  alone  one  may  move  forward.  Vocational 
guidance  may  help  us  here — or  it  may  not.  It  would 
not  have  helped  Grant.  If  he  could  have  been  sub- 
jected to  some  miraculous  series  of  tests  that  would 
have  brought  out  the  fact  that,  failure  as  he  was.  he 
could  achieve  brilliant  success  at  the  head  of  an  army 
what  would  that  have  availed?  There  was  no  army 
for  him,  and  there  was  no  war  in  which  it  could  fight 
If  the  question  ''Is  he  lucky?"  is  to  be  answered  "No 
—but  he  might  become  SO,  if  he  were  at  the  head  of 
the  U.  S.  Steel  Corporation".  I  am  afraid  that  the 
result  Avould  be  the  same  as  without  that  qualifying 
statement. 

When  a  librarian  was  leaving  a  large  field  of  en- 
deavor to  enter  upon  a  still  larger  one,  his  office-boy, 
hearing  some  speculation  regarding  his  successor, 
was  heard  to  say,  "I  could  hold  down  that  job  my- 
self. I've  watched  everything  he  does  and  there 
isn't  a  thing  I  couldn't  do".  What  he  had  watched 
were  the  motions  and  they  looked  easy.  Hut  we 
should  not  laugh  at  this  kind  of  confidence.  An  old 
stager  said  to  me  once  "Oh,  these  young  men!  They 
think  they  can  do  it  all ;  and  t  he  trouble  is  that  80nu 
times  Hi'//  arc  right."  A  young  man  is  a  neutral  in 
luck.  His  good  or  bad  fortune  is  yet  to  be  revealed 
The  complete  vocational  test  would  be  one  that  could 
tell  whether  the  office  boy  were  really  titled  t«»  he  li 
brarian,  and  if  he  were,  would  see  that  he  ultimately 
became  librarian.  Now  we  must  rely  not  only  Ofl 
the  boy's  own  ability  to  estimate  his  powers  but  on 
his  lighting  strength  to  realize  his  vision.    And  then 


LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

is  more  to  it  than  this.  A  worker  may  have  the  abil- 
ity and  may  know  that  he  has  it,  and  yet  he  may  dis- 
trust his  own  estimate  and  so  fail  to  follow  it  up. 
This  is  one  of  the  saddest  varieties  of  "ill-luck".  We 
often  hear  it  said  "He  can  do  that,  if  he  would  only 
realize  it".  Too  often,  however,  the  man  or  the  wo- 
man does  realize  it  perfectly  well;  his  self  estimate 
of  his  powers  may  be  quite  high  enough;  it  may  even 
be  too  high.  Talk  with  him  and  you  may  discover 
to  your  surprise  that  lie  thinks  highly  of  himself. 
But  at  the  critical  moment  he  loses  his  nerve. 
Doubts  arise  in  his  mind.  Is  he,  after  all,  as  able  to 
rise  to  the  emergency  as  he  has  always  thought  him- 
self? He  hesitates;  and  he  is  lost.  His  "ill  luck" 
has  again  been  too  much  for  him. 

Somewhat  similar  to  failures  of  this  sort  are 
those  that  arise  from  lack  of  initiative.  Here  I  think 
our  training  is  somewhat  at  fault.  I  can  almost  pick 
out  at  sight  the  library  assistants  whose  training  has 
been  in  schools  where  obedience  has  been  the  chief 
thing  inculcated,  the  following  of  rules  and  formulas, 
the  reverence  for  standards  and  authority.  They  are 
of  the  greatest  value  in  certain  positions,  but  they 
can  not  advance  far.  They  are  afraid  to  go  beyond 
the  beaten  path — to  take  chances,  not,  as  in  the  case 
just  considered,  because  they  distrust  themselves  or 
their  judgment,  but  because  they  have  been  trained 
not  to  adventure.  Now  adventuring  is  the  only  way 
in  which  mankind  has  ever  got  anywhere.  There 
are  conditions  in  which  chance-taking  is  criminal,  as 
it  usually  is  when  much  is  staked  for  little.  The  en- 
gineer who  risks  the  lives  of  a  train-load  of  passen- 
gers in  order  that  he  may  avoid  losing  a  minute  on 
schedule  time,  is  a  criminal  chance-taker.  He  may 
have  done  it  once  before  with  success,  and  the  belief 
that  he  is  "lucky"  may  induce  him  to  do  it  again. 


LUCK    IN    THE    LIBRARY 

The  trouble  with  the  over-cautious  worker  is  thai  be- 
cause he  feels  that  this  kind  of  adventuring  is  wrong, 
it  is  also  wrong  for  him  to  stake  his  personal  com- 
fort against  a  possible  great  advance  in  the  quality 
of  service  that  he  is  doing.  Perhaps  I  have  put  it 
awkwardly.     [1  so  much  personal  comfort  that 

is  at  stake,  though  that  is  an  element,  as  the  feeling 
that  doing  things  well  "in  the  way  that  we  have  al- 
ways done  them"  is  Letter  than  disorganizing  them 
for  the  purpose  of  shuffling  them  into  a  better  com- 
bination. 

I  have  on  more  than  one  occasion,  in  Library 
School  lectures,  urged  this  point  of  view,  and  1  have 
advised  more  stimulation  to  venturesomeness.  less 
pointing  out  of  old  paths  and  more  opportunities  to 
break  new  ones.  No  one  ever  reached  a  new  place 
by  following  an  old  path.  The  path-breakers  may  be 
''lucky"  or  "unlucky"'.  I  agree  that  the  "unlucky" 
the  congenital  blunderers— ought  to  be  kept  out  of 
the  adventuring  (hiss— but  how  shall  we  tell  who 
they  are  except  by  trying?  I  have  thought,  possiblj 
Without  justification— that  I  have  detected  a  slight 
attitude  of  disapproval  on  the  part  of  Library  School 
authorities  when  such  advice  as  this  lias  been  given. 
"Let  tie-  student  first  learn  the  standards,  t<>  do 
things  by  rule,  to  obey  authority-  then  he  can 
branch  out  into  initiative.*'  But  can  he?  -My  ; 
somewhat  justified  by  experience,  is  that  he  can  not. 
The  standards  must  be  taught.  The  rules  must  be 
known  and  followed,  but  if  along  with  this  tier.-  is 
no  stimulation  to  initiative  and  the  continual  in- 
stilment of  a  feeling  that  progress  depends  on  the 
divine  curiosity  of  the  explorer  we  Bhall  be  training 
only  routine  workers  and  for  our  advances  we  shall 
have  to  depend  on  those  whom  we  stigmatize  as  on- 
trained.     They  will   be  the  "lucky  ones'". 


384  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

Here  are  cases  where  luck  is  a  function  of  atti- 
tudes  of  mind  and  may  be  reversed  if  a  change  can 
be  made  in  that  attitude.  There  are  other  such. 
Take  for  instance  the  case  of  the  grouchy  man — the 
man  who  has  a  quarrel  with  the  world.  He  is  sure 
that  he  is  unlucky — and  sure  enough,  he  is !  He  does 
not  expect  to  be  advanced,  and  no  one  would  think 
of  advancing  him.  His  attitude  and  its  natural  re- 
sults react  on  each  other  until  he  becomes  a  con- 
firmed misanthrope.  Then  there  is  the  man  without 
interest  in  what  lie  is  doing.  Who  would  be  so  fool- 
ish as  to  intrust  an  important  task  to  a  man  who, 
it  is  quite  evident,  does  not  care  whether  it  is  done 
well  or  ill,  or  whether  it  is  done  at  all?  These  per- 
sons betray  their  lack  of  interest  in  ways  that  are 
familiar  to  us  all.  They  utterly  lack  initiative,  but 
for  other  reasons  than  the  persons  whose  cases  have 
been  discussed  above.  They  have  no  objections  to 
adventure,  but  a  venture  presupposes  interest.  No 
one  ever  set  out  to  find  the  North  Pole  who  was  ut- 
terly indifferent  to  its  location  or  the  character  of  its 
surroundings.  All  true  success  is  built  on  a  founda- 
tion of  lively  interest.  Hence  persons  of  this  sort 
are  peculiarly  unlucky.  They  watch  subordinates  and 
newcomers  pass  them  in  the  race,  and  they  are  per- 
fectly certain  that  this  is  due  to  favoritism,  or  to 
luck.  They  themselves  are  unlucky,  and  of  course 
they  will  always  remain  so,  unless  they  can  alter 
their  neutral  attitude. 

In  thinking  over  the  lack  of  initiative  of  which  I 
have  complained  above  and,  the  failure  of  our  train- 
ing to  supply  it,  it  occurs  to  me  that  we  carry  this 
lack  over  into  our  work.  We  are  apt  to  complain  of 
the  difficulty  of  finding  persons  who  are  fitted  for 
positions  of  command  and  responsibility.     What  do 


LUCK    IN   THE   LIBBAB?  385 

we  do  to  elicit  the  qualities  that  make  one  fit  for 

such  posts? 

We  have  in  our  own  library  a  system  of  efficiency 
reports,  which  are  filled  out  by  department-heads 
yearly,  one  for  each  assistant.  These  give  Deeded 
information  about  the  work  of  members  of  the  staff, 
and  they  also  sometimes  reveal  quite  clearly  the 
state  of  mind  of  those  who  make  them  out. 

Two  of  the  questions  are,  "In  what  did  the 
sistant  fall  short?"  And  "What  did  you  like  most 
about  the  assistant?"  It  strikes  me.  on  running 
over  these  reports,  as  I  have  just  done,  that  the  qual- 
ities most  valued  when  present  and  most  Lamented 
when  absent,  are  those  of  a  ^ood  subordinate— the 
assistant  who  goes  quietly,  efficiently  and  quickly 
about  doin^  what  she  is  told  to  do,  is  pleasant  about 
it  and  does  not  shirk.  Here  are  some  of  the  things 
that  our  department-heads  like  best: 

"earnestness,  industry  and  intelligence" 

"alertness;  readiness  to  take  suggestion" 

"excellent  standards  of  work" 

"close  application  to  business" 

"absolute  dependability" 

"persistence'' 

"excellent   worker;  steady;    reliable" 

"enthusiasm  and  eagerness  to  learn" 

"close  attention   to  business'" 

"tenacity  and  faith  in  herself" 

"minds  her  own   business" 

"fine  spirit  in  work" 

"obliging,  willing  and  ready  service" 

"industry  and  intelligent 

"general  information" 

"calm,  cheerful  nature" 

"honesty  of  purpose" 


386  LIBRARY    ESSAYS      < 

"patience  under  criticism" 

"politeness  and  willingness  to  oblige" 

"loyalty,  faithfulness  and  goodness" 

"accuracy  and  systematic  methods" 

"neat  and  ambitious" 

All  these  things  are  fine,  I  agree,  but  there  is  not 
one  of  them  that  suggests  the  possibility  of  advance- 
ment to  a  position  of  command  where  administrative 
ability  and  initiative  will  count.  I  do  not  suggest 
that  these  qualities  are  absent,  but  I  think  the  record 
shows  that  we  are  not  on  the  lookout  for  them  and 
possibly  do  not  value  them  as  we  ought.  Only  once 
in  a  while  do  I  find  a  suggestion  that  a  tendency 
toward  such  qualities  is  of  interest,  as  when,  one  as- 
sistant is  commended  for  "independence  and  good 
judgment''  and  another  for  "resourcefulness". 

And  when  we  come  to  the  "weak  points"  report- 
ed, the  same  facts  stand  out.  Here  are  some  of 
them : 

"lack  of  accuracy  and  system" 

"too  sensitive" 

"too  reserved" 

"often  thoughtless" 

"not  sufficiently  painstaking" 

"too  deliberate" 

"tries  to  work  too  fast" 

"lack  of  poise" 

"rather  slow" 

"hesitates  to  ask  for  needed  help" 

"lack  of  system" 

"impractical  and  idealistic" 

"not  very  responsive" 

"so  eager  that  she  is  a  bit  aggressive  at  times" 

Here,  too,  the  deficiencies  reported  are  predom- 
inantly those  that  would  make  a  bad  subordinate; 


LUCK    IX   THE    LIBRARY 

although  here  and  there  we  may  detect  one  of  the 

other  kind ;  for  Instance, 

"does  not  know  how  to  find  and  develop 
in  her  assistants" 

"not  self-reliant" 

"disinclined  to  assume  responsibility" 
These  are  all  faults  of  poor  executive 

We  shall  never  be  able  to  pick  good  officen  if  we 
<lo  not  know  how  to  deteel  in  our  privates  the  quali 
ties  thai  would  lit  them  to  command  and  ln»w  to  en- 
courage the  development  of  such  qualities  when  there 
is  anything  on  which  to  base  it. 

Luck  may  not  only  be  "in"  but  "of"  the  library 
The  whole  institution  may  be  in  the  Lucky  or  unlucky 
(dass.  I  think  yon  have  known  both  kinds.  The  for- 
mer seem  to  prosper,  to  do  good  and  to  win 
golden  opinions  by  the  very  fact  of  their  existence. 
The  latter  have  small  appropriations,  a  poor  standing 
in  the  community,  and  are  finally  destroyed  by  fire. 
Now  personal  ill-luck  is  and  remains  personal,  but 
the  ill-luck  of  an  institution  may  be  of  various  kinds. 
It  may  reside  in  a  person  or  persons,  or  in  a  system, 
or  in  a  building — <>r  in  all  three.  If  the  Jonestown 
Public  Library  is  unlucky,  the  ill-luck  may  he  that 
of  its  Librarian,  or  of  his  staff,  or  he  may  he  operating 
an   unlucky  system,  or  his  building  may   he  unlucky 

I  am  an  especial  believer  in  unlucky  buildings    Some 

there  are  in  which  it  appears  to  he  ;is  impossibl 
run  a  successful  Library  as  it  would  he  to  grow  i 

tahles    in    an    ash-hin.      Sometimes   one   can    pick    out 

the  trouble  with  half  an  eye,  although  the  same  de- 
gree of  astuteness  seems  to  have  been  beyond  the  ;ir 
ehitect.  or  the  board,  or  the  lihrarian  who  co-oper 
ated  to  produce  it.      lint   in   many  cases  we  know    the 

trouble  only  by  its  fruits;  its  roots  are  bidden,  and 


388  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

the  best  we  can  do  is  to  recognize  that  the  library's 
ill-hick  comes  from  an  unlucky  building,  and  leave 

it  at  that. 

There  are  so  many  sources  of  this  kind  of  general 
library  ill-luck,  that  it  is  a  wonder  we  do  not  see 
more  unlucky  libraries.  There  are  not  so  very  many 
lucky  ones  either,  except  so  far  as  this  proceeds  from 
the  possession  of  a  staff  whose  members  are  individ- 
ually lucky. 

The  statistician  knows  that  the  way  to  eliminate 
chance  is  to  multiply  instances.  The  insurance  ac- 
tuary does  not  know  when  you  will  die,  but  he  knows 
that  of  a  million  men  of  your  age,  very  nearly  so 
many  will  die  within  the  next  year.  It  is  because  he 
deals  with  a  large  number  of  cases  that  he  can  put 
his  system  on  a  business  footing.  There  may  be  only 
one  white  ball  in  a  bushel  of  black  ones;  you  might 
conceivably  draw  that  white  ball  at  the  first  trial, 
but  if  you  did  you  would  properly  refer  to  it  as 
"luck'\  If,  however,  you  could  multiply  the  number 
of  trials,  you  would  bring  up  the  white  ball  sooner 
or  later.  There  may  be  only  one  good  way  of  accom- 
plishing a  result  among  thousands  of  bad  ones.  If 
you  should  hit  on  the  right  one  at  the  first  trial  you 
would  be  "lucky",  but,  luck  or  no  luck,  you  will  get 
it  if  you  keep  on  long  enough.  Patience  is  always  a 
winner  in  the  long  run. 

This  is  the  way  in  which  much  of  our  knowledge 
is  collected.  Edison  found  the  right  substance  for 
his  first  carbon  filament  by  sending  for  all  sorts  of 
materials  from  all  over  the  world,  carbonizing  them, 
and  trying  them  out.  The  right  one  proved  to  be  a 
kind  of  bamboo.  If  Edison  had  hit  on  this  at  the 
first  trial  it  would  have  been  so  "lucky"  a  chance  as 
almost  to  be  counted  a  miracle;  as  it  was,  he  elim- 


LUCK    l.\    THE    LIBRARY 

inated   chance   by   multiplication.     Nothing  annoys 
an  executive  so  much  as  to  he  told  thai  the  adoption 
of  this  or  that  course  will  result  in  a  specified  way 
when  no  one  has  ever  tried  it    This  was  a  common 
attitude  in  the  time  of  Galileo,  when  the  idea  that 
anything  could  be  found  out   by  observation  01 
periment  was  regarded  as  a  public  scandal.     That 
was  the  time  when  a   man   refused  to  look  through 
the  newly-invented  telescope  for  fear  that  he  might 
sec  something  contrary  to  the  teachings  of  Aristotl  • 
These  people  are  not  all  dead  by  any  means.      I   have 
heard  them  assert    thai    a    proposed    change    would 
ruin  the  library  and  then  object  to  trying  it  because 
they   were  afraid   the   result    would   be   contrary   to 
their  own  predictions.    The  medieval  philosophers  at 
least  had  Aristotle  to  fall  hack  on:  their  modem  sm- 
cessors  would  appear  to  be  posing  as  Aristotles  them- 
selves. 

A  housemaid  recently  said  to  her  mistress  "I've 
told  everybody  to-day  ye  weren't  at  home;  now  don't 
sit  in  The  window  and  make  me  a  liar."  No  discovery  ; 
no  falsehood,  you  see.  s,»  if  we  librarians  ran  be 
prevented  from  trying  experiments,  the  false  predic- 
tions of  some  of  our  advisers  will  not  be  false  in  their 
own  eyes,  simply  because  they  will  not  be  exposed. 

My  advice  to  librarians,  and   to  everyone  else  is 
to  keep  «»n  trying  experiments.     If  yon  gel  a  sa 
factory  result   the  first  time,  yon  may  slop,  and  as 

cribe  it.  if  you  please,  to  your  g I  lurk.     if  tie-  re 

suit  is   unsatisfactory,   however,  yon   i d   not    staud 

pat  on  your  ill  luck. 

"If  at  first  you  don't  succeed 

Try,  try  again". 
There  is  more  philosophy  in  that   than  in    .11  .\ri-» 
totle.      It  is  also  a   practical   exposition   of   the    loc 


390  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

trine  of  chances.  Somewhere  is  the  combination  that 
you  want.  Yon  will  find  it,  if  you  only  keep  on  long 
enough. 

Libraries  that  are  afraid  of  being  victimized  by 
chance,  or,  as  we  may  put  it,  becoming  martyrs  to 
bad  luck,  should  ponder  somewhat  more  closely  the 
possibilities  of  relief  from  insurance.  Of  course 
here  I  am  using  the  word  "luck"  in  its  simpler  mean- 
ing of  unforeseen  occurrence.  Take  the  case  of  the 
library  that  suffers  from  the  fact  that  an  influential 
member  of  the  committee  that  fixes  the  amount  of 
its  annual  appropriation  lias  eaten  something  indi- 
gestible for  breakfast.  Such  an  unforeseeable  oc- 
currence, such  a  "piece  of  bad  luck",  might  cost  a  li- 
brary anywhere  from  two  to  twenty  thousand  dollars, 
according  to  the  usual  size  of  its  appropriation. 

Equally  injurious  might  be  the  illness  of  the  pres- 
ident of  the  Board,  throwing  upon  an  incompetent 
member  the  duty  of  presenting  the  library's  claims 
and  needs.  It  is  surely  unjust  that  a  public-service 
institution  should  be  at  the  mercy  of  such  trivial 
chances.  In  some  states,  including  my  own,  the  li- 
brary is  removed  from  such  ill-luck  as  this  by  a  sta- 
tutory provision  fixing  its  public  income,  subject  to 
proper  checks  and  taking  away  the  ability  of  an  in- 
dividual's illness  or  indisposition  to  lower  it.  But 
where  this  ill-chance  is  still  in  its  baleful  working 
order,  why  should  not  the  library  be  protected 
against  it  by  insurance?  Such  protection  would  be 
analogous  to  the  corporation  insurance  taken  out  by 
large  industrial  companies  to  offset  the  loss  likely  to 
result  from  the  death  of  an  officer  on  whose  adminis- 
trative ability  much  of  the  company's  earning  power 
depends,  or  to  the  payment  of  death  duties  by  insur- 
ance, now  being  advocated  by  many  companies,  and 
adopted  on  a  huge  scale  by  Mr.  J.  P.  Morgan.    Insur- 


LUCK    IN    Till;    LIBKARY 

ance  is  the  great  equalizer;  it  multiplies  u 
enlarges  the  field  of  possibilities  and  abolishes  ill-luck. 
We  are  availing  ourselves  of  it  incase  of  possible 
damage  by  fire  or  storm,  or  of  loss  through  our  Lia- 
bility .is  employers.  We  may  in  future  ose  it  to  cut 
out  chance  and  luck  in  other  fields  also  and  to  make 
our  resources  so  dependable  that  we  may  devote  to 
the  extension  and  betterment  of  service  the  u 
uity  now  often  spent  solely  in  devising  means  "to 
get  along". 

I  am  afraid  that  yon  win  compare  this  address 
vevy  unfavorably    with    the    celebrated    chapter    on 
snakes  in  Iceland,  because  whereas  the  author  of  that 
was  able  to  announce  the  non-existence  of  his  sub- 
ject in  six  words,  it  lias  taken  me  a  good  many  thou- 
sand. You  will  do  me  an   injustice,   however,   if  yon 
think  that  I  have  simply  been  demonstrating  the  non- 
existence of  luck.     I  believe  that  when  we  say  a  man 
is  lucky,  we  mean  something  definite,  and  that  thing 
surely  has  an  existence.      It  may  not  be  the  Goddess 
Fortuna,  or  her  modern  successor,  I. nt  it  is  very  real 
and  it  is  worth  investigating  and  taking  into  account 
If  you  are  told  that  one  of  your  assistants  is  "lucky", 
do   not   laugh    it    away.      Find   cut    the    facts,   and'  if 
they  indicate  that  she  is  unusually  successful  in  what 
she  undertakes,   be  thankful   that  yon   have  a   lucky 
person  on  your  staff.    Cherish  her  and  promote  her. 
And  if  yon  can  find  such  a  person  outside  of  VOUT  li- 
brary, with  the  other  necessary  qualifications,  prefer 
him,  or  her.  in  making  an  appointment,  to  one  of  the 
"unlucky"  variety,     h  is  of  the  lucky  kind  that  the 
world's  geniuses  are  made     inventors  like  Bell,  Edi- 
son and  .Marconi,  captains  of  industry    like  Carnegie, 
Rockefeller  and  Henry  Ford,  soldiers  like  Napoleon, 
Grant,  and   Moltke,  statesmen    like    Lincoln,    Glad- 
stone and  Bismarck,  poets  like  Shakespeare]  Dante 


392  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

and  Goethe.  We  have  had  too  few  of  these  in  the 
library  profession.  They  were  all  lucky  and  what 
we  need,  especially  in  the  present  emergency,  is 
plenty  of  "Luck  in  the  Library". 


THE  LlliliAliY  AS  A  MUSEUM 

Boundary  regions  are  always  interesting.  Close 
to  the  line  separating  two  regions  of  fact  or  of 
thought  cluster  the  examples  that  fascinate  us.  Blip- 
ling's  stories  of  India  arc  s.»  interesting  because  they 
tell  of  the  meeting  points  of  two  civilizations— the 
boundary  along  which  they  come  into  contact,  inter- 
act and  fuse.  The  same  is  true  of  all  talcs  of  the 
White  man  and  the  red  Indian,  of  the  stories  of  early 
explorers,  of  the  narratives  of  Spanish  conquistadori  8 
in  the  south  and  French  Jesuits  in  the  north.  The 
student  of  mathematical  physics  will  tell  yon  that 
it  is  not  in  homogeneous  regions,  but  along  boundary 
lines  that  the  application  of  his  equations  becomes 
difficult,  and  at  the  same  time  interesting.  Our 
whole  human  life  is  conditioned  by  boundaries.  lr 
is  possible  only  on  a  surface  separating  the  earth's 
mass  from  its  atmosphere.  It  is  limited  by  narrow 
conditions  of  temperature,  nourishment,  light,  and 
so  on.  So  we  need  not  be  astonished  when  we  find 
that  two  related  subjects  of  any  kind  acquire  new 
vitality  and  new  interest  when  we  study  tin-  region 
along  the  line  where  they  touch.  This  is  especially 
true  of  the  library  and   tie-   innscnm. 

I  do  not  intend  to  dwell  on  the  case  where  the 
books  in  a  library  are  themselves  treated  ;is  museum 

objects,  although  possibly  this  is  the  one  that  ma\ 
first  occur  to  the  mind  in  this  connection.  Hooks 
that  are  curiosities  on  account  of  their  rarity  or  for 
other  reasons  are  limited  nsualh  to  very  large  libra- 
ries.    The  Lenox  Library  in   New    York,  now    part  of 


394  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

the  Public  Library,  was  almost  entirely  a  book-mu- 
seum and  was  so  intended  by  its  founder.  The  pri- 
vate libraries  of  great  collectors,  such  as  J.  Pierpont 
Morgan,  or  the  Huntingtons,  are  often  largely  book- 
museums,  and  in  general,  a  book  that  brings  a  high 
price,  brings  it  for  its  value  as  a  curiosity,  not  as  a 
book.  The  freer  a  book  is  the  more  value  it  has  as 
a  book;  the  more  restricted  it  is  the  greater  its  value 
as  a  curiosity.  Of  course,  even  a  small  library  may 
have  one  or  two  books  that  are  worth  display  as  cur- 
iosities, because  they  are  old,  or  rare,  or  have  inter- 
esting local  associations  either  through  the  author, 
or  the  owner,  or  in  some  other  way.  The  Hawthorne 
and  Longfellow  room  in  the  Bowdoin  College  Libra- 
ry is  an  example  of  this  latter  case.  But  a  book,  or 
anything  else,  owned  and  displayed  as  a  mere  cur- 
iosity, is  of  not  much  real  value,  no  matter  what 
price  it  may  bring  at  auction.  The  things  that  make 
a  good  museum  what  it  is  are  not  curiosities  at  all, 
in  the  vulgar  sense.  They  illustrate  some  science  or 
art  and  make  its  study  easier  and  more  interesting; 
they  throw  light  on  geology  or  history  or  sculpture. 
Once  in  a  while  wre  see  a  museum  collection  of  books 
made  for  this  object,  to  illustrate  the  art  of  binding 
or  the  history  of  printing,  or  the  depredations  of 
book-eating  insects.  The  value  of  specimens  like  these 
has  nothing  to  do  with  their  rarity.  Sometimes  the 
smallest  library  may  have  books  or  pamphlets  that 
may  be  displayed  with  this  object,  especially  where 
the  subject  is  local.  It  may  for  instance  gather  a 
collection  of  early  pamphlets  from  local  printing  of- 
fices, or  of  books  once  the  property  of  some  eminent 
citizen. 

These  things  belong  to  a  museum  pure  and  simple, 
which  is  the  reason  why  I  am  mentioning  them  at 
first,  to  get  them  out  of  the  way  before  treating  my 


LIBRARY    AS    A    MUSEUM 

real  subject,  which  is  the  debateable  -round  between 
library  and  museum.  There  is  nothing  debateable 
about  a  book-museum  any  more  than  about  any  other 
kind  of  a  museum— a  collection  of  historical  or 
logical  specimens,  for  instance,  thai  often  finds  place 
in  a  library  building,  not  because  ii  is  a  library,  but 
because  it  is  a  convenient  place,  or  because  it  baa 
been  thought  best  to  build  a  library  and  a  museum 
under  one  roof,  as  has  been  done  in  Pittsburgh. 

There  is  however  a  real  debateable  ground  be- 
tween library  and  museum,  with  somewhat  hazy 
boundaries  which  I  believe  thai  either  is  justified  in 
overstepping  whenever  such  an  acl  supplies  an  omis- 
sion and  does  not  duplicate.  In  other  words,  there 
is  a  boundary  region  between  library  and  museum 
that  may  he  occupied  by  either,  but  should  aot  be 
occupied  by  both. 

I  shall  try  briefly  to  define  this  region  and  indi- 
cate how  the  library  may  occupy  parts  of  it  without 
legitimate  criticism  when  the  necessity  arises. 

Descriptive  and  illustrative  material  is  to  be 
found  in  both  library  ami  museum.  Speaking  gen- 
erally, the  former  is  of  primary  importance  in  tin- 
library  and  the  latter  in  the  museum.  Many  books 
consist  of  descriptive  text  alone,  without  pictures  or 
diagrams,  and  on  the  other  hand  a  museum  might 
contain  specimens  without  labels,  although  they 
would  not  be  of  much  use.  In  general,  text  with  il- 
lustrations belongs  in  a  library  and  specimens  with 
labels  in  a  museum.  The  mere  Statement  of  the  dis- 
tinction as  it  has  just  been  given,  however,  si 
that  it  may  be  xevy  difficult  to  draw  a  line  between 
the  two  kinds  of  collections.  A  museum  has  been  de- 
fined as  "a  collection  of  good  labels  accompanied  by 
illustrative  specimens."  Here  tie  value  of  the 
scriptive  text  is  emphasized,  even  in  the  museum  <■<>]■ 
lection.     When  descriptive  treatises  are  shelved   in 


396  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

connection  with  the  specimens,  as  in  some  modern 
museums,  we  have  an  expansion  of  the  label  into  the 
book;  and  the  museum,  in  this  one  particular  at 
least,  crosses  the  dividing  line  between  it  and  the  li- 
brary.    No  one  would  blame  it  for  so  doing. 

Similarly  the  library  may  occasionally  cross  the 
line  in  the  other  direction  without  incurring  blame. 
Let  me  repeat  that  both  library  and  museum  may 
contain  descriptive  and  explanatory  text  and  illus- 
trative material.  In  the  museum  the  text  is  usually 
in  the  form  of  labels,  attached  to  the  specimens,  and 
these  are  generally  material  objects.  In  the  library 
the  text  is  in  book  form  and  the  "specimens,"  if  we 
may  so  call  them,  are  plates  bound  into  the  book. 

The  first  step  taken  by  the  library  toward  the  line 
that  separates  it  from  the  museum  is  when  the  plates, 
instead  of  being  bound  into  a  book,  are  kept  sepa- 
rately in  a  portfolio.  The  accompanying  text,  corre- 
sponding to  the  "labels"  of  museum  collections,  may 
be  on  the  same  sheet  as  the  plates  (often  on  the  re- 
verse side)  or  on  separate  sheets,  which  may  be 
bound  into  a  book  even  when  the  plates  are  separate. 

In  the  St.  Louis  Public  Library  about  a  thousand 
volumes,  forming  one  third  of  the  collection  kept 
regularly  in  our  art  room,  have  separate  plates. 
These  are  of  course  not  usually  on  display  but  are 
in  the  cases  ready  to  be  used  in  the  room  on  demand. 
They  thus  correspond,  not  with  museum  material 
displayed  in  cases,  but  with  specimens  packed  away 
in  such  manner  that  they  may  easily  be  secured  for 
study  by  those  who  want  them.  One  may  imagine  a 
whole  museum  equipped  for  students  in  this  way, 
with  nothing  on  display  at  all — no  popular  exhibi- 
tion features.  Probably  no  museum  was  ever  so  ad- 
ministered, as  an  entirety ;  and  as  you  know  the 
large  museums  are  making  more  and  more  of  fea- 
tures adding  to  the  attractiveness  of  the  collection  aa 


LIBRABY   AS   A    MUSEUM  397 

a  popular  spectacle.  The  public  visits  the  Museum 
of  Natural  History  in  New  York,  much  as  it  turns 
the  pages  of  the  National  Geographic  Magazine 
just  to  look  at  the  pictures.  This  treatmenl  of  mate- 
rial is  justified  because  it  increases  popular  into  res! 
in  the  subject-matter  and  brings  people  to  the  mus- 
eum who  would  not  otherwise  enter  it.  Also,  it  pre- 
disposes public  bodies  to  more  generous  support  of 
the  museum.  This  is  true  again  of  such  institutions 
as  botanical  and  zoological  gardens,  which  have  al- 
ways been  show-places  for  the  public  as  well  as  lab- 
oratories for  the  student.  The  library  can  not  af- 
ford to  neglect  such  an  opportunity  of  attracting  the 
public  and  of  stimulating  interest  in  its  own  subject- 
matter — hooks.  It  can  not  continuously  display  any 
great  part  of  its  separate  prints,  as  a  museum  does 
with  its  specimens,  but  it  can  exhibit  them  (Tom  time 
to  time,  so  that  one  or  another  of  them  is  always  dis- 
played in  this  way.  Simple  screens  can  be  cheaply 
made  and  the  prints  fastened  thereto  with  thumb- 
pins,  taking  care  not  to  injure  them  by  perforating 
with  the  pin,  but  letting  the  edge  of  the  head  lap 
over  the  edge  of  the  print  to  hold  it.  and  using  sheets 
of  transparent  celluloid  for  protection,  where  neces- 
sary. After  beginning  such  displays  in  our  own  li- 
brary, we  found  them  so  popular  with  our  readers 
and  so  helpful  in  our  own  work  that  we  are  now 
holding  thirty  or  forty  yearly,  sometimes  two  or 
three  at  once  in  different  parts  of  the  library,  sup- 
plementing our  own  material  with  loans  from  inter- 
ested friends. 

The  value  of  exhibitions  of  plates  is  so  highh  •  - 
timated  by  some  librarians  that  they  are  breaking  up 
valuable  volumes  so  that  the  plates  may  be  used  sep- 
arately. This  is  a  second  step  toward  the  museum 
use  of  the  library.  I  have  heard  a  well-known  libra 
rial)  assert    that   if  permitted   by   his   Hoard   he  Would 


398  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

dismember  every  art  book  in  his  library,  in  this  way. 
Most  of  us,  especially  if  we  are  interested  in  the  ex- 
hibition side  of  library  work — which  is  distinctly  a 
museum  side — will  be  inclined  to  sympathize  with 
him. 

But  although  we  hesitate,  perhaps,  to  tear  to 
pieces  good  books,  even  for  such  a  good  purpose  as 
this,  there  is  much  material  that  can  be  so  treated 
with  a  clear  conscience.  Many  duplicates  of  art 
works  can  be  thus  used,  and  there  is  hardly  an  illus- 
trated book  which  when  the  librarian  is  ready  to 
throw  it  away  does  not  contain  plates  or  maps  which 
can  be  saved  and  used.  In  St.  Louis  when  we  con- 
demn books  they  are  never  destroyed  and  consigned 
to  the  old-paper  dealer  before  passing  through  the 
hands  and  before  the  eyes  of  all  those  who  might  use 
still  usable  fragments  of  this  kind.  Taking  the  item  of 
maps  alone,  some  of  the  best  special  maps  are  at- 
tached to  volumes  of  travel  or  history,  as  folders  or 
in  pockets.  So  long  as  the  book  is  usable,  the  map,  of 
course,  must  go  with  it,  but  if  the  map  has  been  re- 
inforced with  linen  when  the  book  is  purchased,  as 
it  ought  to  be,  it  will  probably  be  in  usable  condition 
when  the  book  is  worn  out,  and  may  at  once  be  trans- 
ferred to  the  map  collection.  The  same  is  true  of 
other  plates  than  pictures — fac-similes  of  handwrit- 
ing, for  instance.  A  very  fair  autograph  collection 
may  be  made  of  such  detached  plates — not  originals 
of  course,  but  originals  are  valuable  merely  as  cur- 
iosities, in  the  way  that  we  have  already  noted.  Fac- 
similes are  as  good  for  any  other  purpose. 

Of  course  all  such  torn  up  or  detached  material 
is  very  convenient  also  for  reference  use — easily 
filed  and  quickly  consulted.  It  may  be  kept  in  verti- 
cal file  cases,  in  loose-leaf  binders  or  in  ordinary 
portfolios.  One  of  the  interesting  things  about  it  is 
the  facility  of  assembling   it   in   different   ways.     In 


LIBRARY   AS   A    MUSEUM 

our  own  library  we  sometimes  tear  apart  the  I  • 
of  an  art  book  simply  to  group  the  plates  in  ai 
der  that  will  make  them  more  valuable  for  reference 

purposes.     This  leads  us  to  another  aearly  related, 
though  1  should  call  it  a  still  further,  step  towar< 
museum  region,  which  is  taken  when  we  deliberately 
create  specimens  by   clipping  and    mounting 
libraries  are  now  doing  this  freely,  both  for  reference 
work  and  for  circulation.     In  many  cases  there  are 
no  separate  labels    here   except    a    brief    descriptive 
title,  the  material  being  classified  according  to  its 
subjeet  or   its   intended   use.      The  similarity   to   tie- 
school  museum   or  circulating  museum — a 
cent  development,  of  museum  work— is  striking.     In 
this  field  the  library  has  been  ahead  of  the  regular 
museums.     The  material  clipped  and  mounted  is  us- 
ually book  material— largely  plates  from  books,  n 
azines  or  papers.    There  is  much  other  material  that 
can  be  so  mounted  and  used— the  kind  of  thing  ; 
is  familiar  in  memorabilia  scrapbooks — theatre  and 
concert  programs,  announcements,  invitations,  tick- 
ets of  admission,    badges,    menus,   photographs,   ad- 
vertising material,  etc.      It   is  usually  a  mistake 
make    permanent    scrap-books    of    such     material 
When   they   need   to  be  assembled    in    book   form    the 
separate  mounts  can  be  brought  together  in  a  lo 
leaf  binder.     A  permanent  scrap-book  ties  the  mate- 
rial together  in  a  way  that  may  prove  embarassing 
Suppose,  for  instance,  that  you  are  keeping  printed 
material  from  three  clubs  in  your  town,  as  you  01 
Clubs  seldom  do   this   for  themselvi  a      S  >vei 
Louis  women's  clubs  have  told  us  that   they  visit 
library  when  they  want  to  indulge  in  research 
their  own  past  doings,     h   might  be  aatural  I 
a  scrap-book   for  each  club  and  insert   the  material 
as  it  comes.     Hut   suppose  you  desire  to  display  ;ill 
your  material  on  war  activities  and  that  some    ■ 


400  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

material  in  these  scrap-books  falls  under  this  head. 
You  will  have  to  leave  it  out  or  tear  out  your  scrap- 
book  leaves. 

Mounting  takes  time,  and  it  is  not  necessary  to 
mount  everything.  Material  used  only  occasionally 
may  be  left  unmounted.  For  instance,  much  news- 
paper-clipped material  may  be  kept  loosely  in  heavy 
manila  envelopes.  Again,  some  material  may  be 
made  more  accessible  if  not  mounted,  especially  if  in 
card  form  and  in  standard  sizes.  Such  is  the  postal 
card.  The  amount  of  valuable  material  obtainable 
in  postal-card  form  will  astonish  those  who  have  not 
looked  into  the  matter.  Besides  the  usual  views  of 
localities,  embracing  buildings,  monuments  and 
scenery,  good  collections  of  sculpture,  architecture, 
portraits  and  many  other  things  may  be  made  in  pos- 
tal-card form.  Postal  cards  are  all  of  the  same  size 
and  very  compact,  so  that  they  may  be  filed  in  trays 
and  treated  very  much  like  catalogue  cards,  guides 
being  used  with  them  as  in  an  ordinary  catalogue. 
The  amount  of  usable  material  that  can  be  stored  to 
the  square  foot  in  this  form  is  probably  greater  than 
any  other. 

In  all  material  of  this  sort,  the  similarity  of  col- 
lection, treatment  and  use  may  be  so  close  that  the 
passage  from  the  picture  to  the  object  seems  almost 
negligible;  yet  many  persons  apparently  consider  • 
that  here  we  must  draw  the  definite  boundary  line 
between  the  collections  of  the  library  and  those  of  the 
museum.  They  would  say  for  instance  that  it  is  per- 
fectly legitimate  for  a  library  to  acquire,  preserve 
and  use  a  plate  bearing  a  printed  fac-simile  in  nat- 
ural colors,  of  a  piece  of  textile  goods,  but  not  a  card 
mount  bearing  an  actual  piece  of  the  same  goods, 
although  the  two  were  so  similar  in  appearance  that 
at  a  little  distance  it  would  be  impossible  to  tell  the 
colored  print  from  the  actual  piece  of  textile.     Li- 


LIBRARY   AS    A    MUSEUM  40 L 

brarians  will  nut  be  apt  to  attach  much  import. 
to  this  distinction,  and  those  whose  collections  in- 
clude treatises  od  textiles  with  colored   plates  will 
not  hesitate  to  supplement  them  with  mounte  .  - 
mens  of  the  actual  textile  with  typewritten  dee 
tions. 

Generally  manufacturers  are  only  too  happy  to 
furnish  samples  of  their  current  output,  and  older 

specimens,  sometimes  of  historical   interest,  can   be 
bought  from  dealers. 

There  are  precedents  for  the  treatment  of  this 
sort  of  thin-  as  library  material.  Probably  Hough's 
well-known  work  on  American  Woods  will  occur  to 
everyone.  No  library,  so  tar  as  I  know,  has  ever 
thought  of  barring  this  from  its  shelves  because  it 
contains  actual  thin  sections  of  the  various  woods 
instead  of  pictures  thereof. 

The  peculiar  adaptability  of  this  kind  of  mate- 
rial to  library  use  is  a  physical  one,  and  is  shared  by 
every  Mat   specimen  that  may  be  mounted  on  she  tg 
Instances  will  occur  to  every  one.    An  actual  flower 
or  leaf,  for  example,  is  generally  cheaper  than  ;i  col 
or  reproduction  of  it.  and  takes  up  little  more  room 
when  mounted.     A  good  descriptive  botany  with  in- 
adequate pictures  may   well   be  supplemented   by  a 
herbarium  of  this  kind.     Historical  material  is  quite 
generally  Hat— often  written  or  printed  on  card  or 
paper— old  pro-rams,  menus,  railroad  tickets,  dance 
cards,    timetables,   cards   of   admission,    souvenirs   of 
all  kinds.     One  of  the  most   interesting  exhibitions 
I  ever  saw    was   of   foreign    railway    material      tim 
tables,  tickets,  dining-car  menus,  etc.     Many  ciii' 
and  Japanese  specimens  were  included,     a  treatise 
on  forms  of  railway  tickets,  with   fac-simile  ilhigj 
tions,  would  be   eagerly    sought    by    libraries;    « 
should  not  the  objects  themsrhes  he  equally  valu- 
able?    Librarians  were  -lad  to  have  Miss  Kate  8 


402  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

bora's  book  on  old  wall  papers,  with  its  realistic  re- 
productions, but  how  many  of  them  thought  of  the 
possibility  of  making  their  own  books  of  specimens, 
using  the  papers  themselves,  instead  of  photographic 
facsimiles  thereof? 

This  point  of   view    may    be   commended    to   the 
makers   of   decorated   bulletins   in   libraries.      Much 
laborious  hand-work  is  often  done  in  the  preparation 
of    these,    and    the    results    are    seldom    worth    the 
trouble.    Even  when  a  work  of  art  has  been  produced 
it  may  be  questioned  whether  the  time  withdrawn 
from  other  library  work  has  been  employed  to  the 
best  purpose.     By  the  use  of  what  has  been  called 
above  "museum  material"  time  may  be  saved  and  bet- 
ter results  reached.     For  instance,  I  once  saw,  in  an 
exhibition  of  picture  bulletins  one  bearing  a  list  of 
books  and  articles  on  lace.    It  was  made  in  white  ink 
on  black  cardboard,  and  bore  a  most  realistic  repre- 
sentation of  lace,  done  with  the  pen,  probably  at  a 
vast  expenditure  of  time.     The  most  that  could  be 
said  for  this  really  clever  bit  of  work  was  that  it 
looked  enough  like  a  real  piece  of  lace,  mounted  on 
the  cardboard,  to  deceive  the  elect  at  a  short  distance. 
Why  then  did  not  the  maker  mount  a  real  bit  of  in- 
expensive lace  on  the  board,  at  an  expenditure  of  a 
few  minutes'  time?      It    should    not    require    much 
thought  to  see  that  bulletins  prepared  in  this  way  are 
usually  better  and  more  effective  than  elaborate  dec- 
oration with  pencil  and  brush. 

Another  point  of  resemblance  between  this  kind 
of  library  material  and  that  utilized  by  museums  is 
the  fact  that  its  value  is  so  often  a  group- value — 
possessed  by  the  combination  of  objects  of  a  certain 
kind,  rather  than  by  any  one  in  itself.  For  instance, 
a  common  earthenware  jar  designed  by  John  Jones 
in  the  Trenton  potteries  may  have  little  value,  but 
if  you  add  to  it  a  thousand  other  earthenware  jars, 


LIBRARY   AS   A    Ml  -        M 

or  a  thousand  pieces  of  any  kind  designed  by  John 
Jones,  or  a  thousand  other  specimens  made  in  Tren- 
ton, the  collection  acquires  ;i  value  which  far  exceeds 
the  average  value  of  its  elements  multiplied  by  thou- 
sands. The  former  may  !»<•  five  rents  the  latter  five 
thousand  dollars.  In  the  same  way  an  illustration 
Mary  Smith,  clipped  from  a  trash;  story  in  a  ten- 
cent  magazine,  has  little  value-  aero  value  perhi 
But  a  thousand  such  illustrations  stowing  the  pub- 
lished work  of  Mary  Smith  from  the  time  she  began 
until  she  acquired  standing  as  an  illustrator,  is 
worth  while. 

It  should  not  be  necessary  to  tell  librarians  thai 
the  best  way  to  make  such  a  collection  as  this  is  not 
to  search  for  each  element  by    itself    hut     to    gather 
miscellaneous  related  material  in  quantity  and  then 
ort  it.     If  you  have  a  pile  of  slips  to  alphabetize. 
you  do  not  go  through   the  whole  mass  to  pick  out 
the  As.  and  then  again  for  the  B's,  and  so  on.   Von 
sort  the  whole  mass  at  once,  so  that  while  you  are 
segregating  the  A's  you  are  at  the  same  time  collect- 
ing the  B's  and  all  the  rest  of  the  alphabet     Like 
wise,  if  you  want  the  illustration  work  of  .Jessie  Wil- 
cox Smith,  for  instance,  you  need  not  hunt  separately 
for  hits  from  her  pen;  you  need  only  clip  all  the  il 
lustrations  from  magazines  and  papers  that   would 
be  otherwise  discarded.     Then  you   sort   these  by   the 
names  of  the  illustrators,  and  you   have  at   once  col- 
lections not  only  <>f  Miss  Smith's  current  work  but 
of  that  of  dozens  of  other   illustrators.      This   is   ap- 
plicable in  a   hundred  other  fields. 

It  should  be  noted  that  this  group  valm-  is  poten- 
tially present  in  many  large  collections  of  material, 
whether  classified  or  not  into  the  particular  groups 
in  question.  For  instance,  we  have  a  large  collec- 
tion of  locality  post-cards,  filed  by  cities  and  t. 
Here  are  groups  ready    far    use      if   anyone   wants 


404  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

views  of  Cedar  Rapids,  Iowa,  or  Stockton,  Cal.,  to 
show  to  a  class,  or  for  use  with  a  reflectograph,  or  to 
copy  for  newspaper  work,  they  are  already  assem- 
bled. But  also  if  someone  is  going  to  lecture  on 
court  houses,  it  is  the  work  of  only  a  few  moments 
to  assemble  from  the  file  a  temporary  collection  of 
fifty  or  sixty  examples.  The  same  is  true  of  build- 
ings of  any  other  type,  say  college  dormitories,  rail- 
way stations,  libraries  or  warehouses,  of  parks, 
mountain  scenery  and  industrial  processes  and  of  a 
hundred  other  things.  The  value  here  is  a  true  group 
value ;  it  is  created  by  assemblage  and  becomes  dor- 
mant again  when  the  items  are  distributed  to  their 
proper  places  in  the  file. 

The  same  is  true  of  lantern-slides  to  an  even 
greater  degree,  for  slides  are  practically  never  used 
except  in  groups.  As  a  collection  of  slides  may  be 
grouped  in  scores  of  ways,  it  is  better  to  file  them 
in  some  order  that  will  admit  of  quick  selection, 
than  to  form  groups  arbitrarily  at  the  outset  and 
keep  these  together.  A  slide  in  such  a  group  is  prac- 
tically withdrawn  from  the  possibility  of  assemblage 
in  some  other  group.  For  instance,  a  view  of  Michael 
Angelo's  "Moses"  might  find  a  place  in  a  group  to 
illustrate  a  talk  on  Michael  Angelo,  or  Renaissance 
Sculpture,  or  The  Art  Treasures  of  Rome,  or  Old 
Testament  Worthies,  or  any  one  of  a  dozen  others. 
If  we  place  it  arbitrarily  in  any  one  of  these  and  keep 
the  group  together,  we  shall  of  course  spare  our- 
selves a  little  trouble  if  anyone  wants  that  particu- 
lar assemblage  of  slides,  but  we  shall  not  only  make 
it  more  difficult  to  assemble  the  other  groups,  but 
practically  put  them  out  of  the  running.  Several 
years  ago  we  had  a  valuable  gift  of  a  collection  of 
slides  illustrating  phases  of  city-planning,  given  by 
the  Civic  League  of  our  city.  They  included  many 
foreign  views  now  difficult  or  impossible  to  obtain. 


LIBRARY    AS   A    MUSEUM 

The  donors  bad  assembled  them  in  groups  to  go  with 
lectures  prepared  in  advance  and  we  maintained 
this  arrangement  for  a  time,  although  it  was  not  in 
accord  with  our  general  plan.  Bui  we  soon  found 
that  persons  who  asked  tor  slides  mi  London  or 
Munich  or  Milan  were  missing  some  ol  our  best  mate- 
rial, simply  because  we  could  aol  always  remember 
to  look  through  the  city-planning  groups  for  some- 
thing that   might  In-  there.     Consequently  we  broke 

Up    these    groups    and    distributed    their    slides    to    the 

proper  places  in  our  file,  which,  is  in  trays  arranged 

precisely  ;is  if  the  slides  were  catalogue  cards,  with 
proper  guides  and  cross-references  on  cardboard 
slips.  W'e  have  memoranda  of  the  slides  that  belong 
in  each  lecture  group  and  these  can  he  quickly  as- 
sembled if  wanted.  Of  course  we  allow  the  public 
to  go  directly  to  the  trays  if  they  desire  and  assemble 
for  themselves  any  group  that   they  choose. 

This  is  all  borderland  material  between  library 
and  museum.  There  is  much  of  it  analogous  t«>  the 
lantern  slide  that  libraries  have  not  taken  up  yet. 
but  that  they  might  handle  to  good  advantage.  I 
do  not  see  why  we  should  not,  for  instance,  circulate 
microscope  slides  or  photographic  oegatives.  Stereo- 
scopic pictures  are  now  commonly  handled  by  libra* 
pies  owing  to  skilful  and  perfectly  legitimate  exploi- 
tation. 

There  is  perhaps  some  doubt  whether  we  should 
include  in  this  sort  of  material  musical  records, 
either  for  the  nierhanical  organ  and  piano  or  for  the 
phonograph.  These  should  possibly  be  considered 
as  books  containing  music  written  in  a  kind  of  nota 
tion  that  admits  of  sound-reproduction.  The  fact 
that  there  is  this  doubt  should  perhaps  suffice  to 
throw  these  records  into  the  borderland  of  which   we 

are  speaking.  They  are  to  some  extent  capable  of 
the  group  arrangement  spoken  of  above,  as1  where  a 


106  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

library  patron  asks  to  take  out  half  a  dozen  records 
from  one  opera  or  eight  old  French  dances.  They 
are  also  capable  of  a  kind  of  correlation  with  other 
library  material  that  is  quite  unique.  Thus  a  read- 
er  may  take  out  at  the  same  time  Chopin's  military 
polonaise  in  ordinary  notation  and  in  music-roll 
form.  The  pianola  reproduction  serves  as  a  guide 
to  his  own  reading  of  the  piece,  or  he  may  simply 
follow  the  musical  notation  as  he  operates  the  me- 
chanical player.  Similarly,  he  may  take  out  the 
miniature  orchestral  score  of  a  selection  and  the  pho- 
nograph record  of  the  same  as  played  by  an  actual 
orchestra.  Here  he  can  not  play  the  piece  himself 
but  he  can  follow  the  reproduction  with  score  in 
hand,  much  to  his  own  musical  pleasure  and  profit. 

An  exactly  similar  correspondence  exists  between 
an  ordinary  book  and  a  phonograph  record  of  it  read 
aloud.  Smli  records  are  not  often  available,  but  I 
see  no  reason  why  they  should  not  become  so,  at  any 
i-ate  in  the  case  of  poetical  and  oratorical  selections. 
Our  means  of  popular  instruction  in  spoken  lan- 
guage are  deficient  and  these  might  prove  useful. 
At  present  we  teach  children  in  the  schools  to  read 
and  write,  but  not  to  speak.  If  they  do  not  learn 
good  colloquial  spoken  English  at  home,  they  are  apt 
to  remain  uneducated  in  this  respect.  This  plan  has 
worked  well  in  the  teaching  of  foreign  languages  and 
it  is  now  possible  to  buy  small  phonographs  with 
cylinder  records  in  French,  German  or  Italian  cor- 
responding to  printed  passages  in  the  accompanying 
manuals.  I  certainly  think  it  legitimate  of  libra- 
ries to  purchase  these,  and  they  would  be  "border- 
land'' material,  I  suppose,  in  the  same  sense  as  the 
musical  records. 

I  may  say  before  closing,  in  regard  to  this  sort 
of  museum  material,  that  the  largest  circulation  of 
music  rolls  that  I  know  of  is  that  of  the  Cincinnati 


LIBBABY   AS   A    MUSE1  M 

Public  Library,  which  distributes  them  at  the  rate 
ul  «M>00  per  year.  We  have  3681  rolls  and  circu- 
lated 16,S14  iii  the  vr.ir  L917.  Neither  the  Cincin- 
nati library  nor  our  own  pays  out  money  for  this 
material     It   is  all  donated. 

The  status  of  phonograph  records  of  all  kind 

museum   material    is   hardly   as   high    in    this  country 

■  is  abroad.     In  the   Sorbonne,   in    Paris,   records   of 
French  dialect  speech  have  long  been  acquired  and 
stored.     Records  of    this    kind    and    moving-picture 
films,  mad.'   of    permanenl    materia]    and    carefully 
prepared   to  show  existing  conditions   would   have 
very  high  future  value,     i  do  nol  know  of  anj 
tematic  effort  to  collect  them  in  the  United   - 
Possibly    it    might    he    difficult    to    find    permanent 
films.    A  moving  picture  man  told  me  that  only  per- 
ishable ones  were  being  made,  as  it  was  not  for  the 
interests  of  the  trade  that    they    should    Last    long. 
There  is  too  much  of  this  spirit  in  modern  industry 
and  r,';l(l,'<  and  it  is  responsible  for  poor  materials 
of   ;l11    sorte     paint,    textiles,    dyes    and    furniture 
Permanent  carbon  photo-prints  on  paper  can  be  made 
and  doubtless  the  process  can  be  applied  to  trans- 
parent films  if  desired. 

This  is  really  museum  material,  but  if  no  museum 
tak.s   it    ,,|»,    I   should   like   to  see  f  he   Public    Library 
the  work.     We  already  have  the  films  of  our 
great  St.  Louis  Pageant  of  1915,  which  may  servi 
a  beginning. 

ft   has   been    said     above    that     museum     material 

adaptable  to  library  us,-  is  bo  for  physical  reasons 
We  may  go  further  and  say  that  the  whole  difference 
between  a  library  and  a  museum  [s  :,  physical  din 
ence  rather  than  one  of  either  object  or  method 
The  difference  is  one  ,.f  material  and  «.f  the  manner 
of  iis  display,  and  these  an-  conditioned  by  physical 
facta     Th«-  difference  between  an  object  and 


408  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

ture  of  it  is  physical.  It  should  not  astonish  us,  then, 
that  when  this  physical  difference  is  abolished,  as 
it  is  when  the  object  itself  is  a  picture,  or  is  mini- 
mized, as  when  the  object  is  flat  like  the  picture  and 
resembles  it  closely,  like  a  textile  specimen,  the 
boundary  between  the  museum  and  the  library  prac- 
tically disappears. 


THE  LIBRARY  AND  THE  LOCALITY 

Then'  is  nothing  more  important  than  standard' 
Lzation,  unless  it  is  a  knowledge  of  its  proper  limits 
Probably  no  more  important  step  has  ever  been 
taken  than  the  introduction  of  standardization  into 
the  industries;  the  making  of  nails,  screws,  nuts  and 
bolts  of  standard  sizes,  the  manufacture  of  watches, 
firearms  and  machines  of  all  sorts,  with  standard  in- 
terchangeable parts.  If  yon  take  apart  a  thousand 
Ford  automobiles  and  mix  up  the  parts  a  thousand 
automobiles  may  be  at  once  assembled  from  those 
parts,  without  any  effort  at  selecting  the  particular 
ones  associated  with  each  other  at  lirst.  You  know 
that  this  principle  is  now  being  applied  to  what  are 
known  as  ''fabricated'*  ships  when'  certain  types  <>f 
freight-carriers  are  made  standard  and  then  twenty 
or  thirty  of  a  kind  are  built  at  once  in  the  same  yard, 
being  assembled  from  steel  parts  cut  <»nt  and 
punched  in  what  are  called  "fabricating  ships". 

Now-  1  need  not  waste  time  in  arguing  here  that 
this  process  can  not  be  made  to  apply  universally  or 
be  used  indefinitely.  To  standardize  a  work  of  art 
would  be  to  kill  it.  Standardization  is  valuable 
where  interchangeability  is  necessary  rather  than 
adaptation  to  local  conditions.  Portable  houses,  for 
instance,  with  interchangeable  parts,  have  been  stand 
ardized  to  a  certain  extent,  but  onh  within  the 
bounds  of  uniform  climatic  conditions.  The  stand 
ard  houses  for  Michigan  and  Alabama  would  have  to 
be  different.  It  is  important,  therefore,  us  I  have 
said,  to  know,  when  standardization  is  being  Carried 
out,  the  limits  of  its  advisability  and   the  conditions 


410  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

under  which  it  becomes  useless  or  injurious.  This 
is  of  interest  to  us  librarians  because  our  methods 
and  processes,  our  buildings,  our  book  collections 
and  the  use  of  both  have  long  been  undergoing  this 
very  process.  And  it  is  surely  desirable  that  almost 
all  the  routine  processes  of  library  work,  and  the 
others  to  some  extent,  should  be  standardized. 

This  standardization  has  been  going  on  ever  since 
librarians  began  to  meet  together  and  began  to  is- 
sue their  own  professional  literature ;  in  other  words, 
ever  since  the  formation  of  the  A.  L.  A.  in  1876  and 
the  establishment  of  The  Library  Journal  about  the 
same  time.  The  subsequent  formation  of  State  Li- 
brary Associations  and  local  library  clubs,  as  well  as 
the  establishment  of  other  library  periodicals,  has- 
greatly  multiplied  the  opportunities  for  librarians 
to  talk  over  their  work  with  each  other,  to  learn  of 
other  and  better  ways  of  doing  things,  to  compare 
existing  methods  and  to  determine,  if  possible,  which 
of  them  best  serves  the  purpose  for  which  it  was  de- 
vised. These  things  having  in  some  measure  been 
decided,  they  were  then  crystallized  and  fixed  by  the 
rise  and  success  of  Library  Schools,  summer-schools 
and  training  classes,  which  selected  the  methods  that 
had  stood  the  test  of  time  and  had  emerged  from 
the  crucible  of  discussion  and  formulated  them  into 
standards  which  were  thenceforth  taught  to  their 
students.  This,  I  think,  is  a  fair  statement  of  the 
way  in  which  our  present  library  standards  came  to 
be  standards. 

It  is  a  good  way  to  select  the  best  and  to  ensure 
that  the  best  shall  not  be  departed  from.  If  the  best 
always  remained  best,  we  should  have  no  quarrel  with 
it.  Unfortunately  there  is  flux  and  change  all  about 
us.  A  method  is  best  when  it  best  corresponds  to 
the  conditions.  We  can  ensure  that  the  method  shall 
not  be  changed,  but  we  have  no  control  over  a  large 


LIBEABY    AND    THE    LOCALITY        411 

proportion  of  the  conditions.    They  change,  in  spite 

of  ns;  and  then  the  methods  ought  to  change  with 
then».     In  some  instances  we  have  erred,  possibly, 

by  making-  it  a  little  hard  to  change  them.  We  are 
now  ready  to  consider  some  of  the  cases  where  stand- 
ards ought  not  to  obtain— where  one  library  ought 
to  fry  to  he  different  from  another  histoid  of  exactly 
like  it. 

It  is  evident  from  what  was  said  above  about 
portable  houses,  that  difference  of  locality  is  apt  to 
introduce  important  exceptions  into  any  rule  of  this 
kind;  and  it  is  on  these  exceptions  that  we  an 
dwell  particularly  to-day.  There  are  thousands  of 
particulars  in  which  it.  is  desirable  that  a  library  in 
one  town  should  he  conducted  exactly  like  one  in  an- 
other town.  What  are  the  particulars  in  which  the 
library  must  or  should  he  different? 

First,  let  us  consider  the  stock  of  hooks.  If  these 
have  been  selected  properly,  differences  between  the 
two  towns  will  perhaps  he  tirst  reflected  in  these,  for 
a  library's  ability  to  serve  its  community  depends 
primarily  on  certain  correspondences  between  the 
hooks  and  the  readers.     These  correspondences  may 

be  summarized  by  saying  that  the  I ks  in  a  library 

must  represent  a  combination  of  the  readers1  wants 

and  their  needs.  These  might  always  coincide  in  an 
ideal  community,  but  in  practice  no  librarian  thinks 

of  paying  attention  to  the  one  to  tl ^elusion  of  the 

other.     At   the  same  time  the  demands  of  the  readers 

should  always  he  known  ami  always  considered  even 
if  they  want  what  is  unnecessary;  and  we  must  like- 
wise try  to  ascertain  what  they  need,  even  if  they 
have  no  desire  for  it.     The  extremes  in  a  community 

without  library  taste  would  he  a  library  of  trashy 

fiction  and  one  of  serious  standard  works  at  which 
no  one  ever   looked.      A    hook-selector   who   U86S   _:<).>'i 

judgment  will  of  course   steer   between    this   Scylla 


412  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

and  this  Charybdis,  and  the  result  will  be  a  collec- 
tion that  the  community  can  use  with  both  pleasure 
and  profit.  Moreover,  as  time  goes  on,  the  readers' 
taste  and  the  quality  of  their  library  will  both  slow- 
ly but  surely  rise.  No  two  towns  are  alike.  Where 
the  books  have  been  thus  selected,  the  collections  will 
reflect  the  character  of  the  communities,  not  only  in 
literary  taste  but  in  many  other  things.  The  indus- 
tries of  the  towns  are  likely  to  differ.  In  one,  per- 
haps, there  are  potteries ;  in  the  other,  shoe  factories. 
The  workers  in  the  industries  and  even  outsiders  in- 
terested in  them  for  local  reasons,  should  have  an  op- 
portunity to  consult  their  literature.  The  natural 
resources  of  the  regions  doubtless  differ — their 
crops,  their  mineral  output,  their  attractiveness  to 
the  summer  tourist,  Transportation  facilities  vary. 
All  these  things  have  their  reflection  in  books  and 
the  differences  of  the  towns  have  their  correspond- 
ing reflections  in  their  libraries. 

Many  years  ago,  your  lecturer  called  the  atten- 
tion of  librarians  to  the  fact  that  they  have  in  their 
own  statistical  tables  a  means  of  ascertaining 
whether  they  are  keeping  up  with  the  reading-ten- 
dencies of  their  communities  in  book-purchase. 
Nearly  every  library  classifies  both  its  stock  and  its 
circulation,  and  tabulates  both  for  the  year,  giving 
also  the  percentage  of  each  class  to  the  whole.  Now 
suppose,  for  instance,  that  his  tables  show  nine  per 
cent,  of  history  on  the  shelves,  we  will  say,  whereas 
the  circulation  of  the  same  class  is  eleven  per  cent. 
Evidently  his  readers  are  fonder  of  history  than  he 
is.  They  read  it  in  greater  degree  than  he  buys  it. 
Moral;  buy  more  history.  Of  course  this  would  be 
the  moral  only  where  the  tendency  shown  was  to  be 
encouraged.  For  instance  the  average  percentage  of 
fiction  on  the  shelves  in  a  public  library  is  probably 
about  thirty,  whereas  its  circulation  runs  from  sixty 


LIBRARY    AND    THE    LOCALITY 

to  sixty-five.  We  do  not  say  here  "Buy  more  fiction", 
because  fiction  reading  needs  no  encouragement,  but 
rather  judicious  restraint,  although   I  certainly  am 

not  one  of  those  who  condemn  it.  I  wish,  however, 
that  we  could  divide  our  novels  into  three  claa 
good,  indifferent  and  had,  and  then  tesl  the  public 
demand  by  the  method  outlined  above.  I  am  con- 
vinced that  sonic  surprises  might  be  in  store  for  us 
Among  the  subjects  that  differ  totally  in  two  Lo- 
calities, local  history  and  biography  are  conspicuous 
Doth  citizens  and  visitors  are  often  interested  in 
them.  There  are  features  of  each  that  are  of  more 
than  local  interest,  but  the  purely  local  side  must 
generally  he  taken  care  of  by  the  library  or  nol  at 
all.  Sometimes  there  is  a  local  historical  society 
whose  work,  of  course,  the  library  will  not  try  to  du- 
plicate; but  there  is  always  room  for  co-operation, 
stimulation  and  aid.  A  moribund  historical  body 
may  often  be  galvanized  into  life  by  an  interested 
librarian.  The  library  may  offer  such  a  body  the 
hospitality  of  its  building  and  shelf-r n  for  its  col- 
lections with  mutual  benefit  Bu1  in  scores  of  towns 
there  is  only  languid  interest  in  local  history  or  lo- 
cal worthies,  and  the  library  itself  niiisi  do  all  that 
is  done.  Material  hearing  on  these  local  matters 
rarely  consists  of  hooks.  It  will  include  local  news 
papers,  (dippings, -a  pamphlet  or  two,  menus,  leaf- 
lets, programs — all  sorts  of  printed  things  issued  by 
churches,  schools,  clubs  and  societies,  and  lost 
soon  as  issued  unless  caught  at  once  and  preserved 
Here  is  the  library's  chance  to  possess  a  collection 
that  is  the  only  one  of  its  kind  in  the  world;  for  OUl 
side  th«'  home  town  no  one  would  think  of  getting  ir 
together.  Supplementing  these  printed  records  may 
he  all  sorts  of  manuscript  material  letters,  diaries, 
reminiscences  or  narrative-  written  or  dictated 
pecially  for  the  library  by  persons  who  have  booh*- 


414  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

thing'  locally  interesting  to  tell.  If  there  are  maps 
showing  the  growth  of  the  town  or  anything  else  of 
interest  about  it,  the  library  is  the  place  for  it.  The 
collection  and  arrangement  need  take  none  of  the 
busy  librarian's  time,  for  there  is  always  someone  in 
the  town  whose  interest  and  labor  can  be  enlisted. 
If  nothing  else  can  be  done,  at  least  a  file  of  the  local 
newspaper  can  be  kept  and  indexed  on  cards,  es- 
pecially for  names  of  localities  and  persons.  Work 
of  this  kind  done  currently  and  not  allowed  to  ac- 
cumulate, does  not  take  much  time. 

In  these  days  of  universal  snapshots,  local  photo- 
graphs are  easy  to  get.  The  librarian  may  take  a 
few  herself  and  the  library  may  well  defray  the  ex- 
pense. A  hundred  years  from  now,  twenty  views  of 
your  main  street,  taken  at  five-year  intervals  from 
the  same  point  and  showing  the  progressive  changes, 
would  be  worth  their  weight  in  gold.  Groups  taken 
"just  for  fun"  or  for  family  reasons,  are  often  worth 
keeping  because  they  show  the  fashions  of  the  day. 
These  are  of  no  particular  interest  to  us  now,  but  any 
of  us  would  be  glad  to  have  in  our  libraries  a  collec- 
tion of  groups  showing  prevalent  modes  of  dress  in 
our  towns  during  each  year  in  the  last  century.  Old 
buildings  are  often  torn  down  to  make  room  for  new. 
These  should  be  photographed  before  they  go. 

All  material  of  this  kind  is  peculiar  to  the  libra- 
ry where  it  is  preserved  and  helps  to  make  that  li- 
brary's collections  a  departure  from  standardization 
otiose  importance  we  need,  perhaps,  insist  on  no  fur- 
ther. 

It  may  not  be  possible  to  collect  in  the  library 
all  of  the  interesting  local  material  in  the  town. 
Much  of  it  may  be  in  the  hands  of  private  owners 
who  will  not  part  with  it,  Some  of  it  may  be  owned 
by  clubs,  churches  or  public  bodies.  In  this  case 
there  should    be    an    index    somewhere    to    indicate 


LIBRARY    AND    THE    LOCALITY         415 

where  it  is,  and  there  is  no  more  appropriate  place 
for  this  index  than  the  library.  I  have  elsewhere 
suggested  thai  where  this  privately-owned  material 
consists  of  books,  cards  for  them  may  be  inserted 
also  in  the  library's  public  catalogue.  But,  in  addi- 
tion, there  i^  DO  limit  to  the  extent  to  which  tin-  li- 
brary may  go  in  indexing  material,  and  this  work 
may  well  enlist  the  interest  and  efforts  of  volunteers. 
There  may  be  an  index  to  old  furniture,  one  of  colo- 
nial  houses,  possibly  illustrated  and  annotated  like 
the  tine  one  prepared  by  Mr.  Grodard  tor  the 
Connecticut  State  Library,  one  of  soldiers  sent  by 
the  town  to  various  wars,  one  <,t'  noteworthy  storms 
or  of  very  high  or  low  temperatures,  one  t * »  local  or- 
ganizations, past  and  present.  The  special  intei 
of  the  community  will  guide  these  efforts,  and  here 
too  the  library  of  one  town  will  differ  materially 
from  that  of  another. 

Possibly  library  standardization  has  affected 
buildings  more  than  anything  else  about  a  library. 
There  was  a  time  where  its  absence  was  doing  a  great 
deal  of  harm,  especially  in  the  case  of  small  or  med- 
ium-sized libraries  put  up  under  the  Carnegie  gift 
Every  hoard  and  every  local  architect  had  a  differ- 
ent idea,  but  all  seemed  to  agree  that  the  building, 
no  matter  how  small,  was  to  he  a  monument,  with  a 
rotunda  and  a  dome;  and  a  good  deal  ol  waste  re- 
sulted. There  w.is  a  loud  call  for  some  kind  of  a 
standard  plan,  and  small  library  buildings,  whether 
for  branches  or  independent  Libraries,  are  novi  ;i  good 
deal  alike,  so  much  so  that  we  can  often  pick  out  a 
library  building  by  its  outward  guise,  and  that  we 
will  sometimes  say  of  a  post-office  or  an  art  gallery, 
"That  looks  exactly  like  a  library".  This  ease  of 
identification  is  of  course  good  as  far  as  it  l:<"-^:  but 
it  should  not  interfere  with  a  certain  degree  of  adap- 
tation   to    local    conditions.      This    is   obvious    in    the 


41G  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

rase  of    sites    offering    local    peculiarities.     For    in- 
stance, the  High  Bridge  Branch    of    the    New   York 
Public  Library  is  built  on  a  steep  hillside.     The  ar- 
chitect has  taken  advantage  of  this  fact  to  arrange 
an  entrance  on  the  ground  level  on  each  of  the  three 
floors.     The  lowest  is  a    service    entrance,    the    next 
above  leads  to  the  children's  room    and    the    upper- 
most to  the  adult  department.     Each  door  opens  on 
a  different  street  and  the  three  facades  are  respec- 
tively three,  two  and  one  story  high.     Evidently  no 
standard  plan    would    have  been    of    use   here.     The 
building,  inside  and  out,  had  to  be  planned  for  this 
site  and  this  alone.     And  although  not  many  sites 
require  such    special    treatment    as    this    there    are 
many  that  do  not  lend  themselves  to  the  erection  of 
a  rigid  standard  building.     In  Detroit  the  Carnegie 
Committee,  I  am  told,  were  inclined  to  insist  on  a 
basement  assembly  room  in  branches  to  be  built  on 
ground  where  any    basement    at    all    would    involve 
wasteful  expense  of  construction.    The  proposed  con- 
tents of  a  building  should  often  affect  its  plan.   Some 
architects  have  not  yet  learned  the  difference  between 
an  independent  library  and    a   branch    of   the   same 
size  and   probable    circulation.     An    independent   li- 
brary may  have  to  house  treasures,  and  should  be  of 
fire-proof    construction.      A    branch    rarely    houses 
anything  that  can  not  easily  be  replaced  and  it  may 
be  waste  of  money  to  make  it  fire-proof. 

The  architectural  style  of  a  library  building  is 
often  properly  made  to  conform  with  some  style 
peculiar  to  the  locality  or  regarded  as  suitable  for  it 
The  Riverside  Public  Library  in  California  is  proper- 
ly in  the  Spanish  colonial  or  Mission  style;  that  of 
New  Haven,  Conn.,  is  a  modified  New  England  Colo- 
nial, the  Jackson  Square  Branch  in  New  York  is 
Dutch,  the  Chestnut  Hill  Branch  in  Philadelphia 
and  the  Public  Library  in  Harrisburg  are  of  the  ir- 


LIBRARY    AND    THE    LOCALITY        417 

regular  sto]  e  masonry  bo  familiar  in  many  parte  <»f 
Pennsylvania.  Some  of  the  branches  in  Portland, 
Ore.,  used  to  be  and  perhaps  siiii  are  of  wood,  built 
<if  the  Douglas  fir  of  the  surrounding  region. 

The  power  of  the  purse  is  an  important  thing  in 
libraries  as  elsewhere,  and  possibly  we  should  have 
taken  up  earlier  the  variations  of  library  income  with 
locality.  Not  only  are  some  communities  better  able 
to  support  a  library  than  others,  but  of  two  with 
equal  ability  one  will  excel  in  interest  and  willing- 
ness to  give,  An  attempt  to  regulate  income  by 
rule  is  the  requirement  of  the  Carnegie  Committee 
that  a  municipality  shall  appropriate  for  the  sup- 
port of  a  library  in  a  Carnegie  Building,  not 
than  ten  per  cent,  of  its  cost  I  know  that  the  condi- 
tion is  primarily  stated  the  other  way  around.  The 
town  is  supposed  to  decide  what  it  can  give  to  sup- 
port a  library  and  then  the  Carnegie  Committee  i^ 
willing  to  capitalize  this  at  ten  per  cent.  But  the 
library  once  built,  its  cost  becomes  the  fixed  item 
and  the  appropriation  the  variable  one.  and  in  many 
eases  it  has  varied  so  far  downward  as  to  constitute 
a  violation  of  the  town's  library  contract,  or  late 
the  Committee  is  making  an  effort  t<»  detect  and 
tabulate  these  violations  and  t<>  use  them  ;is  a  i 

for  witholding    donations    in    neighbor! Is    where 

they  have  been  frequent.  A  man  is  known  by  the 
company  he  keeps,  and  it  may  lie  just  to  regard  with 
some  suspicion  one  who  lives  in  a  neighborhood 
where  dishonest  persons  congregate.  Si  ill.  towns 
are  unlike  men.  since  their  locations  are  fairly  per- 
manent, and  it  seaiveh  seems  right  to  turn  down 
Jonesville's  request  for  a  Carnegie  library  because 
Smithtown,  •">.">  miles  away,  ha-  been  unable  to  appro 
priate  the  ten  per  cent  that  it  promised.  Th,'  Com- 
mittee has  also  made  what  I  regard  ;i-  the  mistake  of 

finding  fault    with   the  library   that     suiter-    from    an 


418  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

unduly  reduced  appropriation,  instead  of  with  the 
city  or  town  government  that  is  responsible  for  the 
reduction.  To  throw  blame  on  the  head  of  an  insti- 
tution that  has  just  been  robbed  of  its  birthright 
would  seem  to  be  adding  insult  to  injury.  But  de- 
spite the  failure  of  this  particular  effort  at  standard- 
ization, there  seems  to  be  a  feeling  that  library  in- 
comes should  be  so  far  standardized  as  to  be  calcul- 
able from  the  particular  set  of  circumstances  under 
which  the  library  is  working.  The  State  of  New 
York  once  attempted  to  regulate  its  library  appro- 
priation by  home-use  alone — so  many  cents  per  vol- 
ume circulated.  This  was  a  very  crude  attempt,  but 
possibly  we  ought  to  be  able  to  say  just  how  many 
dollars  ought  to  support  a  library  in  a  building  of 
specified  size  with  so  many  books,  and  a  circulation 
of  so  many  per  year.  This  matter  was  the  subject  of 
earnest  discussion  for  a  year  or  more  in  the  Amer- 
ican Library  Institute,  but  no  definite  conclusion  was 
reached.  It  has  always  been  my  belief  that  some 
sort  of  formula  could  be  deduced  by  mathematical 
methods  from  a  large  number  of  observed  data,  that 
is,  the  statistics  of  a  series  of  normally-conducted  li- 
braries. Observe  that  this  is  not  so  much  standard- 
ization as  an  attempt  to  systematize  the  recognition 
of  differences. 

With  the  average  librarian  the  practical  ques- 
tion is  not  so  much  what  sum  he  ought  to  have 
to  run  his  library,  as  how  he  can  and  shall  run  it 
with  what  he  has.  Limitation  of  income  invariably 
limits  service,  and  unfortunately  the  kind  of  service 
on  which  it  bears  most  sharply  is  that  which  is  the  li- 
brary's specialty — namely  the  provision  of  books. 
The  purchase  of  books  should  be  the  last  thing  in 
which  the  library  ought  to  economize  but  in  practice 
it  is  generally  the  first.  The  building  must  be  cared 
for — lighted  and  heated;  the  public  must  be  served. 


LIBRARY    AND    THE    LOCALITY 

Bui  it  is  easg  to  stop  buying  books,  and  it  is  in  book- 
purchase  that  the  library  with  small  income  differ* 
from  its  neighbor  with  plenty  ol  money.  There  are 
some  curious  exceptions  where  the  library  ean  doI 
wholly  control  the  expenditure  of  its  money,  which 
is  regulated  by  the  dead  hand  of  a  testator.  Thus 
the  Forbes  Library  of  Northampton,  .Mass.,  now  sen- 
sibly consolidated  with  the  Public  Library  of  that 
city,  was  obliged  for  years  to  expend  most  of  its  in- 
come for  the  purchase  of  books,  leaving  practically 
nothing  for  keeping  up  its  building  or  paying  its 
staff.  It  was  thus  rich  where  a  library  is  usually 
poor  and  vice  rrr.su. 

The  earliest  efforts  at  standardization  among  li- 
brarians were  directed  toward  cataloguing;  and 
probably  cataloguers  arc  our  greatest  sticklers  for 
a  rigid  adherence  to  pules.  Those  who  read  Mr.  E. 
L.  Pearson's  column  in  The  Boston  Transcript  real- 
ize that  there  are  some  librarians  who  consider  this 
facta  legitimate  target  for  ridicule.  And  it  is  clear, 
I  think,  that  both  the  methods  and  results  of  cat- 
aloguing ought  not  to  be  immune  from  modification 
to  adopt  thrnn  to  local  peculiarities.  Some  public  li- 
braries are  used  so  much  for  scholarly  or  antiquar- 
ian research  that  their  catalogues  need  to  approxi- 
mate that  of  a  university  library  :  others  are  of 
popular  a  nature  that  they  hardly  need  a  catalogue 
-it  all.  The  needs  of  a  certain  community  may  re 
quire  the  ?ery  lull  analysis  of  certain  I ks,  when 

elsewhere  these  could  do  very   Well    with    less  anah 

or  possibly  none   at    all.    The   selection    <>f   subject 
headings  may  have  to  be  made  with  due  regard 
the  use  that  a  catalogue  is  likely  to  receive     r.o-.ks 

on  open  shelves  do  not  need  precisely  the  sa kind 

of  cataloguing  as  those  i<>  which    aeeess   is    not 
lowed.     A  library's  public,  ;<><>.  sometimes  gets  Into 
habits,  and  if  these  are  unobjectionable,  it   may  be 


420  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

better  to  humor  them  than  to  try  to  change  them. 
Some  bodies  of  readers  like  as  many  printed  lists  as 
possible;  others  rarely  use  them.  In  some  places 
there  is  great  demand  for  a  monthly  bulletin;  else- 
where it  is  little  used.  Any  librarian  who  does  not 
stand  ready  to  adapt  his  catalogue  in  some  respects 
to  the  character  and  needs  of  his  readers  runs  the 
risk  of  limiting  his  field  of  service. 

Methods  of  distribution  may  require  selection  or 
modification  to  suit  local  peculiarities.  Take,  for  in- 
stance, the  choice  of  a  charging  system.  "Which  is 
the  best  charging  system?"  is  a  question  frequently 
asked  of  experienced  librarians'  or  library  school  in- 
structors. This  query  is  on  a  par  with  "What  is  the 
best  material  for  clothes?",  or  "Is  paregoric  or  ipecac 
the  best  medicine?"  A  librarian  who  finds  in  her 
new  job  a  charging-system  that  she  dislikes,  which 
has  been  used  without  complaint  for  years,  should 
investigate  before  changing.  Acceptance  of  the  sys- 
tem may  be  simply  due  to  habit.  Even  then,  as  we 
have  seen,  there  may  be  reason  for  retaining  it.  And 
there  is  a  fair  chance  that  it  may  have  held  its 
ground  because  it  is  in  some  way  better  adapted  to 
the  community.  Of  course  the  adaptation  may  be  to 
something  else — size,  for  example.  A  rapid  rise  in 
the  circulation  may  take  a  library  out  of  the  small- 
library  class  and  necessitate  changes  not  only  in 
charging  system  but  in  many  other  things. 

Some  day  an  industrious  student  of  library  econ- 
omy will  tabulate  these  things  that  are  independent 
of  local  conditions,  or  so  nearly  so  that  it  is  better 
to  standardize  them,  and  tell  how  the  others  should 
be  varied  with  local  topography,  climate  and  popu- 
lation. There  is  no  time  for  that  in  a  single  lecture; 
and  if  I  can  leave  firmly  fixed  in  your  minds  the 
idea  that  some  things  are  better  standardized,  while 
others  should  be  functions   of   variable   local   condi- 


LIBRARY    AM>    THE    LOCALITY 

tions,  I  Bhall  have  accomplished  all  thai  I  set  oul  to 

do. 

r  have  already  noted  some  of  the  differences  be 
fcween  a  branch  library  and  a  central  library.  Pos 
sibly  these  deserve  further  mention  as  an  instance 
of  the  adaptation  of  methods  of  distribution  to  lo- 
cality. I  have  frequently  had  occasion  to  deal  with 
complaints  which  on  investigation  proved  i<.  be  due 
t«>  the  fact  that  tin-  complaining  reader  expected  to 
find  at  a  branch  library  all  the  facilities  of  a  central 
library.  He  had  lived  near  the  central  library  in 
one  city,  and  had  moved  to  another  when-  it  was 
more  convenient  lor  him  to  use  a  branch.  The  first 
thing  that  strikes  him  is  thai  the  reference  collection 
is  inadequate.  He  does  not  realize  that  the  central 
reference  collection  can  not  possibly  he  duplicated 
at  branch  libraries.  Such  complaints,  however,  may 
often  give  the  librarian  a  hint.  He  may  have 
equipped  all  his  branches  with  the  same  small,  good 
reference  collection,  forgetting  that  reference  work- 
varies  with  locality.  Several  complaints  of  this  sort 
from  the  same  branch  may  indicate  the  necessity  of 
enlarging  the  reference  collection  there  or  perhaps 
<»f  adopting  some  such  scheme  as  we  are  trying  in 
St.  Louis  of  a  central  reference  collection  of  dupli- 
cates for  supplying  temporary  branch  needs. 

It  is  not  always  realized  that  the  character  of  the 
hook-collection  in  a  branch  library  is  influenced  bi 
the  mere  fact   that   it    is  a     branch,    apart     from    con 

siderations   of   size,    circulation    and    character-    ,,f 

readers       There  are   many   standard    books,    in    small 

demand,  that  no    library    should    be    without     One 

copy  will  serve  the  i ds  of  the  whole  t<»wii.    if  there 

is  but  one  library  there  the  I k   must    form   part   of 

that  library's  collection,  whereas  if  there  are  a  cen 
tral  building  and  branches,  it  si Id  be  i,,  the  cen 

tral  library      not    in   the  branches       It   is  for  this  - 


422  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

son  that  the  A.  L.  A.  catalogue  should  not  be  used 
for  stocking  a  branch.  I  know  of  cases  where  num- 
bers of  books  lie  idle  on  the  shelves  of  every  branch 
in  a  city  system,  because  they  are  not  branch  books 
at  all.  One  or  two  copies  at  Central  would  have 
been  sufficient,  and  to  place  them  in  branches  has 
been  waste  of  money. 

When  the  New  York  Public  Library  took  in  a 
considerable  number  of  small  independent  libraries 
as  branches  I  had  the  opportunity,  a  year  or  so  after 
the  event,  of  ascertaining  from  the  librarians,  what 
difference  to  them  and  to  their  readers  the  change 
of  status  had  made.  They  were  unanimous  in  say- 
ing  that  although  they,  as  librarians,  felt  less  in- 
dependent, the  service  to  readers  was  vastly  im- 
proved, owing  to  the  fact  that  the  library  now 
formed  part  of  a  large  system.  This  is  always  the 
result  of  any  kind  of  union  of  effort,  whether  by  con- 
solidation or  co-operation.  The  individual  is  some- 
what hampered  but  the  community  is  benefited. 
This,  of  course,  is  something  of  a  departure  from 
our  subject. 

Sometimes  the  chief  difference  between  two  lo- 
calities is  in  the  character  and  temper  of  the  read- 
ers. The  whole  scheme  of  relations  between  library 
and  public  needs  often  to  be  altered  in  moving  from 
one  place  to  another.  This  is  perhaps  most  notice- 
able in  a  city  where  there  is  a  system  of  branch  li- 
braries. The  assistant  who  has  been  transferred 
from  a  Jewish  to  a  Scandinavian  district  and  then 
to  one  occupied  by  well-to-do  Americans  will  under- 
stand what  I  mean  without  further  explanation. 

But  this  difference  in  readers  is  of  course  much 
wider  than  mere  racial  difference.  It  may  be  a  dif- 
ference in  social  status.  We  Americans  are  too  apt 
to  pretend  that  this  sort  of  thing  does  not  affect  a 
public  educational  institution,  but  it  decidedly  does. 


LIBRARY    AND    THE    LOCALITY 

Some  librarians  make  the  mistake  of  thinking  that 
these  differences  are  racial  also.  It  is  a  matter  of 
common  knowledge  among  city  librarians  that  in  a 
"slum"  library  the  problem  of  discipline  is  simplicity 
itself  compared  with  a  library  where  the  readers  are 
nearly  all  well-to-do.  This  is  often  asserted  to 
pend  merely  on  the  racial  difference  between  the 
newly  arrived  immigrant  Russian  Jew,  Italian  or 
Pole — and  the  native  American.  Bui  we  find  that 
when  the  immigrant  has  learned  the  customs  of  the 
country  and  has  made  enough  money  to  raise  him  in 
the  social  scale  and  enable  him  to  move  from  his 
shim  surroundings,  he  quickly  lakes  his  place  with 
the  well-to-do  library  patrons.  Be  is  more  exacting 
and  his  children  are  harder  to  manage.  The  differ- 
ence is  really  a  social  one.  The  immigrant  is  accus- 
tomed to  being  looked  down  on  in  his  native  coun- 
try, to  living  on  little  and  having  few  principles.  Be 
is  humble  and  thankful  for  small  favors.  What  he 
gets  at  the  library  fills  him  with  amazement  and 
gratitude.  Mary  Antin  lias  told  as  all  about  it.  But 
the  well-to-do  citizen,  whether  by  birth  or  recent  ac- 
quirement, realizes  that  the  library  is  being  sup- 
ported by  his  taxes.  lie  realizes  it.  in  fact,  s<>  keen- 
ly, that  he  gives  it  somewhat  undue  prominence  in 
his  mind  and  sometimes  shows  this  in  his  treatment 
Of  the  library  stall'.  Knowing  that  the  library  be- 
longs in  part  t«>  him.  he  may  often  forget  that  it  be- 
longs in  equal  degree  to  others.  II. •  is  Impatient  or 
even  resentful  Of  rides  intended  to  maintain  equal- 
ity of    service.      His    children     unconsciously    absorb 

this  same  attitude.      They    resent    control    and    are 
hard  to  keep  in  order.     Much  of  the  librarians'  time 
must  he  given  to  smoothing    down    ruffled    featl 
ami  maintaining  discipline     time  which  ought  to  be 
given  to  bettering  the  quality  of  sen 

Evidently  these  two  kinds  of  communities  must 
he  handled  differently.    They  call  for  different  train- 


m  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

ing  on  the  part  of  the  staff — a  different  stock  of  books 
— almost  for  different  buildings.  Then  there  is  the 
indifferent  community,  which  may  be  anywhere  in 
the  social  scale  and  which  requires  special  handling. 
It  is  even  difficult  to  tell  at  times  whether  or  not  a 
community  is  really  indifferent.  Their  reaction  to 
the  library  is  often  a  phase  of  the  local  feeling  that 
is  the  subject  of  this  lecture.  It  is  present  in  some 
communities  and  absent  in  others,  but  its  presence 
does  not  always  mean  real  appreciation  of  library 
privileges,  nor  does  its  absence  mean  lack  of  such 
appreciation. 

Not  more  than  a  few  months  apart,  about  ten 
years  ago,  two  branch  libraries  were  opened  in  New 
York.  One  was  in  Greenwich  Village,  a  district  of 
strong  local  peculiarities,  which  I  fear  it  is  about  to 
lose  because  writers  have  taken  to  describing  them 
in  the  magazines.  The  other  was  on  96th  street, 
which  was  a  part  of  New  York  like  any  other.  The 
"Village"  took  the  greatest  interest  in  the  library 
from  the  moment  when  its  site  was  selected.  The 
building  was  watched  from  its  foundation  up.  Bad 
little  boys  annoyed  the  workmen.  Local  politicians 
and  merchants  congratulated  the  neighborhood  and 
told  us  how  fine  they  thought  it  was  all  going  to  be. 
Everybody  wanted  to  take  part  in  the  opening  exer- 
cises and  nearly  everybody  did.  There  were  floods 
of  oratory  and  crowds  of  visitors.  But  having  ob- 
tained the  library  and  done  what  it  considered  its 
whole  duty  in  the  premises,  Greenwich  Village,  not 
being  a  community  of  readers,  proceeded  to  leave  us 
to  our  own  devices  and  it  was  only  after  months  of 
up-hill  work  that  the  Branch  succeeded  in  getting 
anything  like  a  respectable  circulation. 

On  the  other  hand  the  establishment,  construc- 
tion and  opening  of  the  96th  Street  Branch  were 
treated  by  the  surrounding  residents  with  supreme 


LIBBABY    AND    THE    LOCALITY        425 

indifference.     No  one  bad  asked  to  have  a  branch  lo- 
cated  ;it   tin's  point,  which  had  been  selected  solely 
for  reasons  of  topography  and  population.     As  the 
building  went  up,    no  one  asked   whether  it   was  a 
school  or  a  bank.     Nobody  came  to  the  opening  ex- 
ercises.    And  yet  when  the  library  began  to  circu- 
late books  the  community  responded  to  such  an  ex- 
tent thai  in  a  short  time  the  branch  was  giving  them 
out  at  the  rate  of  40,000  a  month.     Bere  the  interest 
and  pride  of  a  community  in  the  possession  .-if  a  li- 
brary building  and  its  disposition  to  make  use  of  the 
library  are  clearly  shown  to  be  two  different  thit 
In  this  rase  the  two  communities  were  parts  of  the 
same  city,  but  separate  towns  often  show   the  same 
phenomenon.     Some  of  the  most   indifferent   library 
towns,  for  instance,  are  the  ones  where  superhuman 
efforts  were  put  forth  to  secure  a  Carnegie  building. 
A   kind   of  standardization   of  which    we  can    not 
have  too  little  is  that    controlled    by   the   man    who 
takes  himself  as  the  standard     his  own  ideas,  prej- 
udices and  habits.     This  kind  of  standardizer  is  not 
always  aware  of  what  he  is  doing.     He  believes  that 
his  methods  are  the  best.    They  may  be  best  for  him 
and  possibly  for  the  particular  environment  in  which 
he  lias  been  working  .   I  am  not  sure  that  some  of  "in- 
most cherished   library   habits  did   not   originate  in 
this  way-   were  not   originally  simply   the  personal 
whims  of  some  aide  and  forceful  library  administra- 
tor \\h«>  was  in  ;i  position,  in  the  formative  stage  <>f 
library  progress,    to  impress  them  on  tie-  fabric  of 
(»nr  work.       Fortunately  for  U8,  the  men  of  this  kin. I. 
in  the  early  history  of  the  library  movement,  were 
not    only   men   of   force   but    generally    <»f  common- 
sense  as   well.      Possibly   their   habits  and   customs 

were  as   good    as    any    others     that     we     might     have 

adopted.    !  am  sure  that  the\  were  better  than  some 

lint   individual   points    <,f    view     maj     in    some    -.. 


426  LIBRARY    ESSAYS 

prove  disastrous.  I  remember  an  English  novel  in 
which  a  local  librarian  personally  interested  in  the 
history  of  the  French  Revolution,  uses  all  the  avail- 
able funds  of  his  institution  for  years  to  buy  books 
on  the  subject,  building  up  a  fine  collection,  but  mak- 
ing his  library  useless  for  its  ordinary  purposes. 
His  successor,'  a  man  with  other  interests,  threw  out 
the  whole  collection.  I  have  often  wondered  which 
of  these  two  librarians  one  ought  to  condemn  most. 
Both  are  examples  of  the  injury  that  may  be  done 
by  what  we  may  call  auto-standardization. 

I  am  preparing  tins  whole  lecture  with  a  fear 
that  some  one  of  this  kind  may  think  he  is  adapting 
his  library  to  his  locality  when  he  is  only  standard- 
izing it  by  himself.  Self-deception  may  go  far  in 
matters  of  this  kind,  and  there  is  something  to  be 
said  in  favor  of  hard  and  fast  standardization  with- 
out departure  of  any  kind,  in  that  it  prevents  aber- 
rations such  as  I  have  just  hinted  at.  I  trust  that 
no  self-standardizer  is  in  my  present  audience. 

Our  conclusion  from  all  this  should  be,  I  think, 
that  a  library  should  not  only  assimilate  its  methods 
to  those  of  other  libraries — which  is  standardization, 
but  should  react  to  the  needs  and  conditions  of  its 
own  surroundings,  which  is  localization.  If  you 
would  know  the  extent  of  this  local  reaction  and  the 
character  of  its  results,  ask  the  members  of  the  li^ 
brary's  community,  especially  if  that  community  is 
small.  And  we  must  remember  that  no  library  com- 
munity is  large,  so  far  as  its  direct  popular  use  is 
concerned.  Whether  it  is  in  a  village  or  a  city, 
whether  it  is  a  central  library  or  a  branch,  it  is  ef- 
fective as  a  community  centre  only  within  a  small 
circle,  of  perhaps  half  a  mile  radius.  The  residents 
of  this  circle  are  in  a  position  to  give  testimony  re- 
garding the  library's  local  services.  If  it  has  suc- 
ceeded in  adapting  itself  to  local  needs  its  reputa- 


LIBRARY    AND    THE    LOCALITY 

tioD  will  be  that  of  a  valuable,  helpful,  well-dispo 

institution;  if  not,  the  neighbors  will  be  hostile,  or 
at  least  indifferent  Libraries  thai  are  in  constant 
troultle  with  their  readers  the  objecl  of  continual 
complaint  and  controversy,  generally  have  the  feel- 
ing that  the  fault  is  with  the  public.  Sometimes  it 
is;  for  a  maladjustment  is  seldom  on  one  Bide  alone. 
But  more  often  it  is  chiefly  due  to  the  fact  that  the 
library  has  overlooked  its  purely  local  functions. 
while  possibly  at  the  same  time  conforming  most  ad- 
mirably to  what  are  considered  the  best  library 
standards.  No  library  can  afford  to  neglect  its  spe 
Cial  duties  to  its  locality  and  if  these  conflict  with 
standardization,  it  should  lie  the  general  standards 
and  not  the  local  adjustments,  that  should  go  by  the 
hoard. 


INDEX 


Administration,    Cost  of.    217 
Advertising,   General,    277;    in 

library,   35,    172 
Age  limit  for  children.   210 
Allen,    James   Lane,    quoted, 
a.    L.   A.  catalog,    122;    Pr<  sid< 

address,  121 
American   Library    institute,    H8 
American    Idea   of   delegated   au- 

thority,   .".7:    Of   propriety,    133 
Americans    as    money-lovers,    156 
Antin.    Mary,    quoted,    423 
Appointments.    95 
Appropriation   for  books,   24 
Architecture    of    libraries,    315 
Art,   Not   Intellectual,  331 
Assassins,    Persian   sect,    129 
Autograph  collections,  398 
Auto- standardization,    425 

Badness.    Three    kinds    in    books, 

207 
Beginners,    Message    to.    357 
Beresford.    J.    D.,    quoted,    372 
Best    books    defined.    141 
BibUa  abibUa,  .88 
Bibliographies  for  book  selection, 

19 
Binding.    Choice    of,    25 
Boards  of  trustees,   39,   49,   93 
Book  committees,  22,   147 
Book- lovers,    99 
Booh    selection,    17,    125;    Raising 

standard    of,    141 
Book -taught     BUkins, 
Books,  l  (istributlon  of,  30;  Love 
of,   97;    w  ;     toflu- 

of     locality     on     stock     of, 
411 
Booksellers'    League    I  N  1 
Boston    Public    Library, 
Boston   Transcript,    419 
Bowdoin  Colleg»    111 
Branch     dep't.,     Jurisdiction     of. 

233 
Branch    libraries 
of  sites,    i7> 


Brooklyn      Public       Library. 

Scli. 

•  .    William    J.. 
Buildings,    Future,    ■ 

on  of,  115 
Bulletins,  Pictun 
Busim  sg    man'.--   libi 

Carlyle,   Thomas,  quoted,   64 
Carnegie,    Andrew, 
quoted,    105 

egie   ( lommittee,    R<  qulre- 

mentfi    Of,    criticized,    417 
Cash-registers,   n 
Cataloguing.     Local    modifications 

of,    419 
Catholics    and    the    library.    300 

oi      Librarian   as  a,   121 
I  -,  i,i.  r,    l  ►eflnitlon    of,    111;    Func- 
tions  of.    Hi 
('Kane.  .    Definition    of,    "74 
Charging  systems,  420 
Chestnut      Mill     Branch,      Phila., 

416 
Children,    Work   with.    86 
Children's    department,    Juri 

tion  of,   833 
Christian    Scientists    and    lh< 

brary,  301 
Church    and    library 
Churches,    Duplication   of.   344 
Circulation,   Statist 

long   range,    --1 

Ch  IC    !-•  ague.    St.    Loulf 

Civil    Servlci     Commission,    NY. 

CiVil     S.  I  \  l.  .      In    It!-: 

Cla 

of. 
cin,  ,.(    work,    2:: 

CUpp  • 
( ;lo* 

•  im.  rdal    system    la    libi 

■ 


430 


INDEX 


Contract  system,  94 
Cost  of  libraries,  85 
Cyclopedia,    Library    as    a,    14i> 

Dana.  John  C,   quoted,   261,   317 
Decameron,   criticized,   137 
Delivery   service,    Frequent,    228 
Delivery    station    work,    221 
Detroit    branches,    416 
Distributer,  Library  as  a,   29 
Dont's.     for     book-selectors,     150 
Downtown  branch,  228 
Drudgery,    102 
Duns  on  postal  cards,  13 
Duplication,    Sin   of,    341 

•ion.    257:    Through   libra- 
ry.   87;    University  of,  111 
Educational    center,    Library    as, 

111 
Educational  results,  52 
Efficiency    records,     199;    quoted, 

385 
Eliot,   Charles  W.,  quoted,   80 
Envelopes    for    filing,    400 
Ephemeral   books,   34,    89,   104 
Examinations,    186 
Exclusion  of  books,  Grounds  for, 

122;   Of  readers,   242 
Exhibits  in  a  library,  397 
Expenditures,    Division    of,    418 
Experiments,    370,    389 
Expert    advisers    for     book-selec- 
tion,   125,    145 
Experts,    Control    by,    40,    49 
Exploitation   of   libraries,    321 
Extension   of   library   service,    365 

Falsity   in  books,    123 

Feed-wires,  Compared  with 
books,    168 

Fiction,  Appraisal  of,  23;  Selec- 
tion  of,   147 

Finance,    51:    Statistics   of.    73 

Fines,   4 

Forbes   Library,    419 

Force,   Fields  of,    115 

Forecasts,    310 

Foreign    books,    133 

Formalism    in   libraries,    290,    320 

French  ideas  of  propriety,   132 

Genius.   Definitions  of,    ►">! 
Gerould,  Mrs.,  quoted.  291 


Gifts,    Undesirable,    173 
Gil   Bias,   criticized,   137 
Glennon,    John    J.,    274 
Godard,    George,    415 
Grades  in   the   staff,    186 
Grant,   Ulysses   S.,  Life  of,   380 
Greenwich   Village,    New   York 

City,   Library  in,   424 
Group-education,    116 
Group-psychology,    285 
Group-value    of    collections,    402 
Groups,   Recognition  of,   315 

Harrisburg  Public   Library,    416 
Hicks,    Frederick  C,    quoted,   261, 

264 
Hierarchy,    Control   by   a,    42 
High   Bridge   Branch,    New   York 

City,   416 
House-to-house   delivery,   871 
Houses,  Index  to,  415 
Hungarian    books,    368 
Hysteresis,    269 

Imponderables,   260 

Income   from   fines,   7 

Indecency  and  immorality  dis- 
tinguished,  127 

Indianapolis  Public  Library,  Ad- 
dress at  opening,  283 

Initiative,    Need   of,    361 

Insurance,  A  relief  of  "ill  luck," 
390 

Interest    and    initiative,    384 

Inventory,    70,    74 

Jackson    Square    Branch,    New 

York    City,    416 
James,    William,    quoted,    117,    260 
Japanese,    Heritage    of,    167 

Kent.   William,    quoted,   206 
Kipling,    Rudyard,    quoted,   168 

Language,    Best   of,    142 

Lantern-slides,    404 

Lay    control    in    libraries,    39f    49 

Lecky,  W.  H.   H.,   128 

Lectures,    Collections     taken     at, 

175 
Lenox  Library,  393 
Librarians,    Three    kinds    of,    241 
Librarians'    libraries,    50 


[NDEX 


Librarj .  The  small,  29;  And  the 
business   man.    269;   The  sub- 
scription,   293 
Library  schools,   96 
Library  work,    Future   of, 
Local   history,    113;   Material,    117 
Locality,    Library   and,    409 
Luck   In   the   library.   373 
Lutherans    ;m<l    the   library, 

Machine- work, 

Mai  -  mi    in    the    libra 

205 
Mallock.   W.    H..   quoted,   153 
Mayer,    Dr.     Alfred    G.,      quoted, 

357 
Medical   officers,   380 
Meetings    in    libraries,    :;i  1 
Militarism.    Union  against,   271 
Miller,   Elsie,   quoted,   224 
Missionary  work  of  libraries 
Morgan,   J.   P.,  390.  394 
Moving     i"i  i urest 
Museum.   Library  as  a, 
Music,   Popularization   of,   325 
Mutilation    of    books,    1 1 

Napoleon,      Anecdote     of,      37:: 

Nationalization    of    libraries,    310 

New  Haven    Public   Library,    41K 

New    York.    Consolidation    of    li- 
braries in,   350 

New    Yin!-;    !'!'.i    Circulating   Li- 
brary,   Scheme   of   service,    185 

New    York     Public    Library,    312, 
1 2  _• ;     Science     circulation 
Scheme   of   service,    192 

Newman,    Cardinal,    quoted,    66 

Newspaper    science,    12  1 

Newspapers.    105 

Ninety-Sixth    St.    Branch,    Nev 
York     City.     425 

Non-partizanship,      180,      270;      In 
book    selection,    12G 

Omission.    Sin    of.     Ml 
i  rpen   shelf   libraries,   82 
Organization   of   Idlem 
Othello   •  riticized,    r:7 
Overdue   bunks,   8 

Pains    and   penaltle 
Pay-duplli  m,   6 

Peai  son,    E     i.  .    119;    qu  i 


Phonograph   re       ' 
Photogr  iphs,    Loi  d,    »n 
Pianola    rolls, 
Plates   as   mu 

Play  defined,   112 
Poe,   Edgar     \ 

I'ii.   if  j         i:  .  ■:■ 

Poets,   librarii 

Political     Interference      with 

braries,    320 
Popularization      of      Infoi 

123;    Of   librai 
Portland,    Ore.,    branches,    1 1 7 
Postal-card   material 
Postal-cards.    [UegaJ,    13 
Prairie    psychology,    294 
Private  collections  Indexed,    US 

in   novel,   130 
Professional    training,   318 
Professionallzation     of     llbi  1 

310 
Profit  in  a  library,   161 
Promotions.    186 

Public   Control   by,    12,    19;    w 

IS    it?      91 
Public-opinion,    p>>\\  en/ 
Publicity,    35,   280,   304 
Publishers'   Weekly,  20 

Racial    in    social    b(  • 
Readers.    Statistics  of,    7(; 
Reading  of   music. 
Realism,   I 

Recreation   through   libi 
ational   results, 
rence   use,    Stat 
ii.it ion,     size  .1  nd  r 
Reich,    EJmll,    qi 

;tion    in    tletini 
tion.    Imi m 

of.    117 
Reviews,   21 

Riley,    James    Whitcomb 
Riverside    Public     Llbnu 

416 
Knl.  -      852;    Author  it 

sr.    Louie 

St.    LOUlS    pi  in 

St.    Louis    Pul 


432 


INDEX 


Savage,    Characteristics    of,    357 
Scholarship  in   libraries,    287 
School  and  library,   60,  88 
School,   Function   of,   113 
School    libraries,    255 
Scrapbooks,   399 
Screens  for  display,    397 
Service    systems,    183 
Shaw,    George    Bernard,    127 
Sight-reading,    333 
Simplicity,    Best   of,    142 
Smith,    Munroe,    quoted,    259 
Social   results,    55 
Socialists,   Mistake   of,    155 
Socialization   of  libraries,    310 
Special    libraries,    316 
Standardization,   Limits   of,   409 
Statistics,      69,     161:     Use     of     in 

book-purchase,     412 
Sumner,   "William   G.,    quoted,    133 
Sunday    school    libraries,    301 
Superficiality    denned,    135 
System,    Magazine,    280 
System  in   the   library,  153 


Talk.    Unnecessary,    214 

Taste,    Cultivation     of,     33,    329; 
Test   of  142 

Telephone  use,   274 

Text-books,    Composite,    264:    Un- 
satisfactory,   124 

Textiles,    400 

Theft   of   books,    14 

Time,    Waste    of,    163,    353 

Trade-lists,    19 

Travelling   libraries,    86 

Triviality,    135 

Trustees,   39,   49 

Trustees'    Section,    A.    L.    A.,    44, 
49 

Truth      in      advertising, 
books,   123;  As  a  test,   14 

Turgenief   as   a   realist,    34 


278; 

? 


Vacations,    212,    215 

"Vincent,    George    E.,    quoted,    116 

Volta  Review,    quoted,    265 

Walmsley,    H.    R.,    quoted,    265 
Wister,   Owen,   quoted,    132 


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